Industry History | Itochu — Linen Samples Before the Honmachi Shop
· 1858
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Industry History | Itochu — Linen Samples Before the Honmachi Shop
kevin
People treat Itochu as an Aoyama trading tower that always sat next to the other sogo shosha.
The first inventory was linen carried on the road.
In 1858 Chubei Itoh, then fifteen, left the family shop in present-day Toyosato, Shiga, and began itinerant sales of Ohmi linen through Osaka and Kishu.
The company dates its founding from that year.
His brother stayed behind on the buying side.
In 1872 Chubei opened Benchu, a drapery shop at Honmachi 2-chome in Osaka, east of Nakahashisuji.
Fushimi-machi was then the established cloth wholesale street.
Honmachi was cheaper and sat on the road up from the Kawaguchi landing.
He chose the cheaper street.
Benchu handled linen and fabrics from Bino and Kanto.
In 1884 the enlarged shop took the name Itoh Honten.
The Itoh line later split and recombined: C. Itoh and Co., Itochu Shoten, Daido Boeki, and, on the brother's side, the house that became Marubeni.
Both listed traders still count 1858 as year one.
The Ohmi merchant rule sampo yoshi — good for the seller, the buyer and the community — is the phrase the company repeats as its founding ethic.
Osaka remains the registered head office, now at Umeda 3-1-3.
Tokyo headquarters long sat at Kita-Aoyama 2-5-1 and, from 24 August 2026, move to Akasaka Trust Tower.
The pin is Honmachi, where the sample books stopped traveling and became a shop.
Photo: Osaka around Honmachi and the castle ridge, via Wikimedia Commons.
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