Who Owns AJI-NO-MOTO?

The brand's origin is one of the more unusual stories in food science. In 1908, Professor Kikunae Ikeda of Tokyo Imperial University identified glutamate as the compound responsible for the savory taste of kombu dashi, the kelp broth central to Japanese cooking. He named the taste umami and patented a method for producing monosodium glutamate.

Businessman Saburosuke Suzuki II acquired the rights to commercialize the discovery, and in 1909 the product launched under the name AJI-NO-MOTO, meaning "essence of taste." Early sales were slow because consumers had to be taught what the white powder did, and the company invested heavily in cooking demonstrations and recipe education across Japan.

International expansion began early. The product entered China and Taiwan in the 1910s and reached the United States by the 1920s. After the Second World War, the company built local production across Southeast Asia and Latin America, and the small red-labeled bottle became a fixture in home kitchens from Thailand to Brazil. The corporate entity adopted the Ajinomoto name and was formally incorporated in 1925.

Through the second half of the twentieth century the brand anchored a diversifying company that moved into frozen foods, soups, coffee, amino acids, and pharmaceuticals. The seasoning itself remained a volume staple: sold in more than 100 countries, produced in factories from Vietnam to Brazil, and marketed in markets where MSG went from novelty to pantry standard.

The brand faced its hardest period in Western markets during the decades when monosodium glutamate was stigmatized, a reputational problem rooted in a 1968 letter in a medical journal that coined the term later popularized as Chinese restaurant syndrome. Decades of subsequent research, and reviews by the FDA, the World Health Organization, and the European food safety system, found MSG safe at normal consumption levels, and the company has spent recent years funding campaigns to rehabilitate the ingredient's reputation.

Under its current structure, AJI-NO-MOTO sits inside a company that recorded JPY 1,583.7 billion in sales in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, with the seasoning contributing to a Seasonings and Foods segment that alone generated JPY 936.9 billion.