Today we feature another Shōwa Modan bottle —this one for Name Sugar Yogurt— featuring children’s faces with hats. (Similar to Chichiyasu’s Chi Bow character (のチー坊) and the Hosho “Warranty” milk baby)
(Photos above, below-left & below-right are from citymilk.net; images on right are from “Yogurt Showa”)
The “Name Sugar” brand was first established in 1953 by Japan’s Socialist Party. (Cooperative Dairy Co., Ltd.)
There was an earlier “socialist” cooperative dairy movement in the U.S. (See: Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative)
Nice that the “Name Sugar” brand name includes the word “name” — like “Billy Name” or brand-as-a-brand-name.
The bottle has red illustrations of a boy with a hat on one side and a girl with a hat on the other side. Both sides have blue type spelling out: “名糖ヨーグルト” which translates to “Name Sugar Yogurt.”
Can’t say who did the face illustrations, but the “NS” diamond logo was replaced in 1964 with the “cow” trademark designed by Ikko Tanaka.
In the photo on the right (from: ☆牛乳グラス☆コレクション☆) you can just make out that logo through the boy’s face., which means that this yogurt bottle must be from 1964 or later.
Photo below via: Ameba
….
update: turns out that I have the brand name all wrong. Although Google consistently translates the product’s brand name into English as “Name sugar,” I was wrong to trust it. (See Howard’s comment below.)
「名糖」doesn’t mean/isn’t “Name Sugar”. Yes, the first character in the words means “name”, BUT that company is from Nagoya (名古屋) and the first character in Nagoya is the same.
Instead, the name is “Meito Sugar” and MANY companies based in Nagoya (and many places, too) use that character/reading in their name. (Most Japanese characters have at least 2 readings and
「名」can be read as 「mei」as well.)
Here’s the Wiki page for the parent company.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8D%E7%B3%96%E7%94%A3%E6%A5%AD
Howard, I had a feeling that “name” might just be a Google translation thing. And I was thinking that “NS” could just as easily stand for “Nagoya Sugar.” Thank you for setting us straight.
You’re welcome. It’s easy to make such mistakes.