About Menma
The Origin of the Name, Menma
Before the war (before 1940), menma was called “shinachiku” in Japan. Shinachiku’s direct translation is “Chinese bamboo shoot”. Shina means China and chiku means bamboo shoot.
After the Second World War, as the relationship between China and Taiwan worsened, the Taiwanese government denied Marumatsu Bussan’s export of shinachiku, bamboo shoots from Taiwan to Japan due to the reason that the word, “shina”(China) was attached to the product, which was made in Taiwan.
Shusui Matsumura, the former president of Marumatsu Bussan then decided to change the product’s name from shinachiku to menma. He came up with the name, menma because ramen chefs often served bamboo shoots on ramen soup noodles. “Men” means noodle in Japanese. “ma” was taken from the word, “ma-chi-ku”, which is the name of the raw material of which menma is made from.
As a result, the name change was accepted. The export of menma from Taiwan to Japan was permitted again.
Nonetheless, our company was not able to register menma as a trademark in Japan because the name, menma is similar to another product, which is not a food product. Even though it is not registered, we are proud of the fact that the term, menma is now the common name that people use to refer to the specific types of bamboo shoots that we produce.
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