Hi-Chew candy maker Morinaga  America Inc. is breaking into the frozen dessert market with its parent company’s recent $130 million acquisition of My/Mochi Ice Cream, marking another step in its plans to double U.S. sales by 2030.
“We see a tremendous opportunity to build a sustainable snacking business positioned for future growth,” Morinaga America’s Chief Executive Teruhiro “Terry” Kawabe said.
Morinaga America, which established its U.S. headquarters in Irvine in 2008, is known for Japanese candies.
It generated $136 million in sales in 2024 and is scheduled to report 2025 results in May. The company aims for $250 million in sales by 2030.
To increase sales, it is expanding into what the industry calls “novelty” ice cream. Los Angeles-based My/Mochi Ice Cream, the largest mochi ice cream brand in the U.S., reported $80 million in sales last year.
“Morinaga will leverage its longstanding R&D expertise and production technology in Japan for the frozen dessert category” into the My/Mochi product portfolio, Kawabe told the Business Journal.
The My/Mochi Flavor
The company’s founder, a Japanese baker, created My/Mochi in 1993 in a small shop in Little Tokyo—where he sold pillowy sweet rice dough filled with ice cream.
Today, My/Mochi makes over 20 flavors of mochi (mow-chee) ice cream.
Kawabe said the manufacturer will begin working on new product development within My/Mochi this month as the deal closes. Since the mochi product has textures and flavors similar to those of its existing Hi-Chew chewable candies, Morinaga also sees potential for a brand collaboration between the two.
The CEO said that the parent company’s existing lines of frozen desserts in Japan—such as popsicles, ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches and chocolate-coated ice cream—are a key part of the international business. Kawabe said the division generated 49 billion yen in fiscal 2024, equivalent to $310 million. Morinaga intends to replicate this in the U.S. through My/Mochi and any future products.
My/Mochi will remain headquartered in Los Angeles, led by CEOÂ Craig Berger, and keep production there while operating under Morinaga & Co.
Additionally, Morinaga America plans to take advantage of My/Mochi’s distribution network on the East Coast in specialty club stores, like Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale, for Hi-Chews and these potential new products, while also utilizing its own footprint to bring My/Mochi into convenience stores—an untapped market for the ice cream brand.
“My/Mochi is the only mochi ice cream brand to have distribution at the nationwide level,” Kawabe said, adding that this makes it the No. 1 mochi brand in the U.S. “We aim to grow together into a global brand within the candy and the frozen dessert category.”
“By combining the assets of both companies, we aim to achieve sustainable growth through enhancing the product appeal and ensuring stable supply of the existing mochi ice cream business, as well as cost optimization,” parent Morinaga & Co. said in a statement.
Exploring Other Categories
The U.S. novelty ice cream market reached an estimated $8.6 billion in sales
in 2025, according to data from Circana. My/Mochi is Morinaga’s latest step into the frozen treats category, following its own product experiments last year.
Morinaga tested a popsicle called Hi-Chew POP in select Costco stores in the Bay Area, with a larger store rollout planned for this spring.
My/Mochi is the latest portfolio addition to the Japanese sweets manufacturer, alongside its Hi-Chew candies, following the 2023 launch of the Hi-Soft caramel chews and the 2022 caffeine-free Chargel energy drink.
Kawabe added that the Hi-Chew portfolio has helped the brand create a pipeline of possible licensing opportunities with U.S. brands it cannot name yet.
Morinaga is also exploring other snack categories to add to its portfolio, including health-related products.
Japan-based Morinaga & Co. has a broader goal of becoming a wellness-focused company by 2030. While “steady sales” come from its longstanding “confectionery and foodstuffs” segment, Morinaga is aiming to make frozen treats, jelly and collagen drinks its new drivers of growth, with the overall U.S. business as the lead.
“We will develop new businesses to shoulder our next-generation growth, by collectively designating the creation of business models, product development, and other new initiatives in Japan and overseas centered around wellness, as the exploration and research domain,” the company said on its website.
The U.S. business made up about 8% of Morinaga’s net sales (yen) for the first nine months of 2025, according to company filings.
Morinaga in Japan reported that last year’s efforts focused on increasing the number of Hi-Chew SKUs (stock-keeping units) in supermarket channels while also tapping into new markets. “Slumping sales” in the convenience-store channel led to an overall revenue decline for the candy brand, the company said.
Morinaga’s My/Mochi products could be a boost to struggling convenience-store sales.
Sales of Morinaga’s U.S. jelly drink Chargel “are steadily increasing” on the e-commerce side while it attempts to break into brick-and-mortar retail.
Morinaga & Co. is also investing $130 million to build a second factory in North Carolina, spanning 132,633 square feet, next to its existing facility. The factory currently under construction will double Morinaga’s Hi-Chew production capacity—over two billion pieces are made annually—when it opens in early 2027.
