The 70th anniversary of the company’s founding. Believing in what we consider “good”, we want to create a path where there is no path.

On February 11, 2023, IKEUCHI ORGANIC will celebrate its 70th anniversary.

I took over the company from my father, the founder, in 1983. I have been involved in towel making for 40 years, but I am still full of enthusiasm for the future.

When I think about manufacturing, my heart is centered on my love for the Beatles, which has continued since I was in the third grade of junior high school, and their presence has been a part of me since the moment I saw the news footage of the madness at Kennedy Airport when they first arrived in the U.S. on February 7, 1964.

Their music has always been innovative sound-making that I had never heard before, yet never pretentious. They have created the current trend of rock and pop music by fusing various genres of music such as rock and roll, electronic music, classical music, and ethnic music at a high level. They even create equipment and recording systems for their music, and their activities are a history of challenges themselves. I treasure the six years I spent with them, during which my body trembled with the constant novelty of the Beatles every time a new album arrived.

I want to believe in what I believe is good, and I want to create a road where there is no road, the Long and Winding Road, to deliver to our customers the same surprise and excitement that the Beatles gave us. Although I am not as far removed from the Beatles as I would like to be, these thoughts are always present in my mind.

Looking back on our company’s 70-year history, it has been a series of challenges to create a road where there was no road.

On February 11, 1953, Ikeuchi Towel Factory was founded as a factory specializing in export. At first, the main export markets were oil-producing countries in the Middle East such as Iran, and as we refined our technology, we gradually moved to the European market and finally to high-end users in Germany, the center of towel production at the time.

At that time, a company specializing in exporting towels was unique even in Imabari. In those days, my father, the founder of Imabari, saw an opportunity overseas and went there. He also did not want to compete for the domestic market with the company that had nurtured him.

In 1973, the 20th anniversary of the company’s founding, he made a major investment to establish a firm position in Europe. The company decided to order 24 units of “TOYODA8,” a prototype of which had not yet been built, at the blueprint stage, and to build a new factory. In today’s terms, this would be like spending billions of yen to not only build a new factory from scratch, but also to triple the size of the factory. I am often called a “daredevil” and a “new foodie,” and I am aware of it, but I never had the courage to do such a thing.

I still remember my wedding in 1975. I was working in Osaka at the time, but my father asked me to hold a wedding in Imabari. My father was well-known in the towel industry in Imabari, and all the guests, except for my husband and my friends, were from towel companies in Imabari.

To my surprise, my father insisted that we also give towels as gifts. I thought it was a joke to give towels to a towel maker, but what I gave him was this towel woven by “TOYODA 8. I think he wanted to tell me that these high-density woven and sheared towels were a new trend in Europe, a developed country.

The oil crisis that coincided with the establishment of the 20th anniversary factory caused the yen to appreciate sharply, forcing us to shift from exporting exclusively to the domestic market. However, we believe in what we believe is “good” and our attitude of creating a path where there is no path has taken root in the spirit of our company.

In the 40 years since I took over the baton from my predecessor, we have continued to pursue the path we believed in, such as by quickly starting environmentally friendly manufacturing, deciding to compete with our own brand, and changing our company name and brand name to IKEUCHI ORGANIC.

Thankfully, our encounters with customers who share our stance have led us to new steps. Every time we hear the support of our customers, our desire to create even better products grows stronger. The impulse that comes from within and the support that pushes us forward. These two wheels support our passion for making things.

In my mind, I have a very detailed navigation chart of the IKEUCHI ORGANIC brand, and I have an image of the kind of manufacturing I want to achieve in the end. There are many twists and turns on the way to get there, and there is no way that the road will be straight, but with the fusion of your support and the techniques created by our craftsmen, we should be able to produce towels that babies can eat by the year 2073.

Craftsmen often tell us, “Even if we manage to make one prototype, it is impossible to produce enough towels to be used by many customers. However, they encourage us by saying, “Since we were able to weave one piece, we can make it happen by applying our ingenuity to it. There is no reason why we can’t make it happen.” Encouraging them, we all continue to work hard. We are preparing a towel that symbolizes this as one of our 70th anniversary models.

We would like to put even more effort into overseas expansion, which is the starting point of our company.

Looking back, a major turning point for us was winning the “Best New Product Award” at the Home Textile Show in New York in 2002, as the first Japanese company to do so. In addition to the fact that the company’s brand name was quickly gaining recognition both in Japan and overseas, we also gained a great deal of confidence in our own brand.

IKEUCHI ORGANIC has a “Towel Support Program” to support athletes who are active in the world, and we ourselves will compete on a global scale. We believe that the time will come when high-quality towels, which are the crystallization of the high standards of Japanese technology and culture, will also lead the world.

We feel that we must continue to manufacture our products every day with the spirit to impress not only our customers in front of us, but also people around the world who have yet to see our products.

Last but not least, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of our founding, we are planning to implement various projects. We are planning to resume real events such as “Imabari Open House,” propose a new series of products for the next generation, and remake products that have been important in our company’s history using organic techniques, so that you can feel the “past” and “future” of IKEUCHI ORGANIC.

We want to continue to deliver excitement and love to those who support us. Please look forward to the future of IKEUCHI ORGANIC.