Hi-Chew Goes to Bat

Hi-Chew is a Japanese fruit chew that spent decades as an import-aisle curiosity in the United States. Morinaga & Co. turned it into a mainstream American candy with baseball. Japanese pitchers handed it out in Major League bullpens, and the company followed with team sponsorships. Today most of the Hi-Chew sold in North America is made in North Carolina.

A Candy Built on a 1930s Idea

Morinaga was founded in 1899 and is one of Japan’s oldest confectioners. In 1931 it sold a chewing candy called Morinaga Chewlets. The goal was a sweet that felt like chewing gum but could be swallowed. Hi-Chew grew out of that line and launched in Japan in 1975.

The texture is the product. Hi-Chew starts firm and softens as you chew it, but it does not stick to the teeth the way taffy does. The flavours are bright and close to real fruit: strawberry, green apple, mango and grape. That made it stand out from American chews, which tended to be either very sugary or very sour.

How Baseball Did the Marketing

The bullpen bag

Hi-Chew became a clubhouse snack before it became a supermarket brand. Relief pitcher Junichi Tazawa joined the Boston Red Sox in 2009 and was a key reliever on the 2013 World Series team. In Major League tradition, the youngest relievers stock the bullpen bag with snacks. Tazawa filled it with Hi-Chew, and his teammates started asking for it. Similar stories spread from other teams with Japanese players.

From dugout habit to sponsorship

Morinaga saw the opportunity and signed formal deals. By 2015 it had multi-year partnerships with the Red Sox, the Chicago Cubs and the Minnesota Twins. The Los Angeles Dodgers added Hi-Chew to their dugout the same year. The roster kept growing:

• 2022 — Partnerships with the Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays, including a video-game-style home run derby on Wrigley Field’s left-field board
• 2023 — Four MLB partnerships: the Cardinals, Cubs, Detroit Tigers and Milwaukee Brewers

Baseball suited the candy well. Players chew constantly during long games. A bag of individually wrapped pieces is easy to share. TV broadcasts show players chewing in the dugout, and fans who see that look for the brand.

From Import Aisle to Big-Box Shelves

Morinaga set up its US arm, Morinaga America, and started a full national push around 2008. Before that, Hi-Chew was mostly found in Asian grocery stores. It is now sold at Target, Walmart and Costco. The company says its US sales have grown about 20% a year since 2018.

The packaging changed for the US market. Japan is known for slim stick packs. The American range is built around peg bags and stand-up pouches of individually wrapped pieces, a format suited to sharing, convenience stores and checkout lanes.

Made in North Carolina

Morinaga decided to make the candy in America instead of shipping all of it from Japan.

Local production cuts shipping time and cost. It also lets Morinaga develop flavours for American tastes and protects the business from exchange-rate swings and import tariffs.

Why It Matters for Overseas Partners

• Retailers and distributors — Hi-Chew is now a proven mass-market brand, not a niche import. It sells in mainstream candy aisles as well as Asian specialty stores.
• Japanese food exporters — The Hi-Chew path is a model: build a following among enthusiasts, find a cultural channel that spreads the word (here, baseball), then invest in local production once demand is clear.
• Brand marketers — Sports sponsorship worked because the product was already being used in dugouts. The partnerships made an existing habit official.

Conclusion

Hi-Chew did not win America with a large advertising campaign. A product with a distinctive texture reached Major League clubhouses through Japanese players, and Morinaga backed it with sponsorships, wider retail distribution and two factories in North Carolina. With the second Mebane plant open in 2026, Morinaga is betting that Americans will keep buying Hi-Chew for years.