Did you know that one Salt Lake City family once produced 75 % of the popular Japanese seasoning, miso, in the United States?
Edward Fujimoto and his wife, Rae, were the proud owners of Fujimoto & Co. This business was located just behind the Rio Grande Depot in Downtown, Salt Lake City.
The company was originally opened in 1917 in San Francisco by Edward’s father Genpei Fujimoto. Edward inherited the company when his father died in 1929. Operations continued in San Francisco until the United States entered World War II.
The road to success in Utah, however, was long, winding and full of hardship.
During the dark days of WWII, when over 127,000 Japanese Americans were forced into U.S. internment camps, Edward, along with Rae and their teenage daughter Grace,both of whom were U.S. citizens, were sent to the Topaz relocation center near Delta, Utah.
"I do remember packing up and being put on buses and crossing the bridge," Grace shared in an oral account of her life story tothe University of Utah Special Collections Department in 1985.
"I have a letter that I had written to my dad saying that although our curtains had to be drawn, the shades on be bus..., we peeked and saw the lights of San Francisco. And perhaps it could have been - it might have been the last time that we could see it. It made us feel sad, not knowing the future."
While in the internment camp, Rae wrote to the Salt Lake City Council and against all odds obtained a business license. By 1945, Edward and Rae had established Fujimoto & Co.
Along with miso, the Fujimoto’s were true entrepreneurs. Their company also sold several canned goods, dried fish and even a Hawaiian-made sake. The couple also owned a shoe shop and a bath house.
According to their daughter Grace, the family employed many individuals who came from internment camps. Grace also shared how her parents used traditional methods of making miso instead of using heavy machinery.
"They figured they were close enough to be competitive to any miso company," Grace Fujimoto shared in her oral history to the University of Utah. "After the war, we sent miso all over the country. Wherever Japanese relocated to from New York, up to Canada and Seattle."
Decades later, Fujimoto & Co. was acquired by Miyako Oriental foods in the 70s, and after all these years, the miso is still manufactured in California under the Kanemasa brand.
