In 1960, Koeisha received a request for triangular picks from the Swedish cooperative (the world's largest cooperative organization) of the customer. This customer was a company that had bought cocktail picks in pottery barrels
as well as flat toothpicks in big quantity and focused on the promising characteristics of triangular picks, which was expected for production in Japan. This is an isosceles triangle pick developed in 1960 Norway - it is connected like a comb and it is completely different from the conventional one in a form of folding one by one. Marusho Industry Co., a cooperative factory of Koeisha & Co.Ltd. has manufactured flat picks and round shafts and sent them to Kawachinagano. S. Inaba consulted with his representative H. Urita and started researching triangular pick production machines
S. Ohkawa have made round shafts at Takayama and supplied to Kawachinagano.
In 1960 A .Fuchikawa recommended S.Ohkawa to make round shafts in Hokkaido. Because in Takayama, white birch gradually becomes obliged to ask the outback, so its price was getting higher. He anticipated future demand for logs of birch wood.
He has become a pioneer of the production of round shaft in Hokkaido. His youngest child, Z.Okawa, succeeded it and continued to make a round shaft and send to Kawachinagano until 1963. Without the Okawa family, it was impossible to form an exclusive production place of the toothpick in Kawachinagano. T.Ohkawa, the eldest son, also helped his father's business, but then later became independent, had produced mainly flat toothpicks. He was responsible for supplying flat toothpicks after the fire at our Takayama plant.
Fuchikawa and S. Inaba devised the use of a polyethylene container at almost the same time. Until then it was common for toothpicks to be bound with threads and wrapped in cellophane. The binding by yarn was limited to experts, and furthermore, wrapping with cellophane required manpower. Everyone could pack in a round poly container and there was convenience that it can be used as it is as a container on a desk. Cost is also low; benefits such as no pain in transportation and so on have been mainstreamed for a while and have reached the present. Initially we introduced the machine at Koeisha company and made poly container in the company. It is a manufacturing method commonly called blow molding, which adds air to heated polyethylene, inflates it to the full extent of the mold, and takes out the container made when it cools a little. However, because patent registration by A.Fuchikawa was a little earlier than
S. Inaba, Koeisha stopped company production and started stocking from the outside.
In 1961, members of the toothpicks association gathered, and consulted and devised a toothpick with Kokesi(wooden doll)-like decorations at the top which is presently found on a daily basis. Until then, the round toothpick kept cutting the top used saw, so the cutting face became rough. We used a grinding stone so it burned and became black, so it resembled a kokeshi and attached two streaks to the bottom. Initially decorations were not accepted as unnecessary but gradually became popular, and eventually most of the round toothpicks have become this form. To say that the groove of the head of the toothpick is for use as a chopstick restraint is a popular opinion, it is mere decoration. Since toothpicks are inexpensive, they are not used like chopstick rest.
The Alps Industry (F.Nakatani) later developed (in 1971) the cutting machine of the round shaft with Kinsei corp of Osaka Tondabayashi. Until then we had cut the round shaft by hand, so production was restricted in that part. With the introduction of this cutting machine, the toothpick dramatically had increased the production volume of the pre-installation process in Kawachinagano.