Corn starch, coffee and a word for dawn.

Oishi is a Philippine brand with a Japanese name and a Tagalog parent. Its maker began in 1946 as Liwayway, a family business repacking corn starch and coffee, according to English Wikipedia; Chinese Wikipedia places it in Manila and describes it as processing starch and coffee. Liwayway means “dawn,” a name English Wikipedia links to the optimism of the Philippines after the Second World War and Chinese Wikipedia to the hopes of the newly independent country; it renders the company name in Chinese as 晨光, “morning light.”

The family was of Chinese descent. English Wikipedia names the brothers Carlos Chan and Manuel Chan as the founders and traces their parents to Jinjiang county, in Quanzhou, in China’s Fujian province. A separate English Wikipedia article on Carlos Chan, whose Chinese name is 施恭旗, describes him as the eldest son of emigrants from Fujian and says his father arrived in the Philippines in 1914.

The business grew from repacking into distribution. In 1966 it was incorporated as Liwayway Marketing Corporation, distributing basic goods, coffee and confectionery, English Wikipedia says. In 1974 it began selling Oishi Prawn Crackers together with Kirei Yummy Flakes, made with Japanese technology. Both names are Japanese words: oishii means “delicious” and kirei “beautiful,” Chinese Wikipedia notes. Carlos Chan’s own article credits him and Manuel with diversifying the family business through the Oishi snack brand in the 1970s.

The company still trades under its full name, Liwayway Marketing Corporation, operating as Oishi, with its headquarters in Pasay, in Metro Manila. As of 2018 it was headed by Carlos Chan as chairman and chief executive, English Wikipedia says.

Shanghaojia.

Oishi’s biggest story lies outside the Philippines. Carlos Chan began exploring an expansion into China in 1984, after the start of the country’s reform and opening, English Wikipedia says, and the company formed a joint venture and opened its first overseas factory in Pudong, Shanghai. Chinese Wikipedia gives a later timetable: a joint venture with a state-owned Shanghai prawn-cracker factory, a plant set up in 1993 and the first products made there in 1994, with the China headquarters later moving to Qingpu District.

In China the brand is sold as 上好佳 (Shanghaojia), a name meaning “top grade and high quality,” so the Chinese market knows it by a Chinese name rather than the Japanese word used at home. Recognition in Shanghai followed. English Wikipedia says Carlos Chan received the city’s Magnolia Gold Award, which honours foreigners contributing to its development, in 1998, and was made an honorary citizen in 2005–2006, when Oishi Shanghaojia was named a “Shanghai famous brand.”

From there the brand spread across Asia and beyond. English Wikipedia dates its arrival in Vietnam to 1997, Myanmar to 1999, Indonesia and Thailand to 2006, South Africa to 2017, Bangladesh to 2018 and Uzbekistan to 2019; Chinese Wikipedia, which dates the first factories outside China from 1996 and names plants in Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and South Africa, adds an entry into Cambodia in 2013 and describes a facility in Uzbekistan as planned in 2021. Oishi’s own website offers country pages for the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Carlos Chan’s public role has gone beyond snacks. He has served as a Philippine special envoy to China under Presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Benigno Aquino III and Rodrigo Duterte, received the Order of Sikatuna and was named Management Man of the Year by the Management Association of the Philippines in 2021, according to his English Wikipedia article, which also credits him with helping bring the J.CO Donuts franchise to the Philippines.

Family firms and snack aisles.

The seven brands in this group are food and drink brands from the Philippines and Thailand: Jack ’n Jill, Ligo, Mega, Oishi, Goldilocks, Lactasoy and Dutch Mill. Food and drink brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to names that now belong to much larger food groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a neighbourhood store to a supermarket shelf.

A food or drink brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a pack, a name and the snack, meal or drink it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its factory or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its products are actually made and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

One brand, two names.

The range now reaches well beyond prawn crackers. English Wikipedia lists snacks, cereals, biscuits, milk and drinks among the company’s products, and Oishi’s own statement of ideals sets out the aim of being “the leading food company in the markets we serve,” with a set of “Good Chef” operating principles covering clean equipment, quality ingredients, standard processes and kitchen safety.

Its packaging has also become part of an environmental programme. In 2024 Oishi partnered with CEMEX Asia Holdings to send plastic packaging waste to cement plants for co-processing under the Philippines’ Extended Producer Responsibility Act, The Manila Times reported in March 2024, as cited by English Wikipedia.

The name can confuse. The Philippine Oishi is unrelated to Oishi Group, the Thai food and drink company of the same name, best known for its bottled green tea; the two share only a Japanese word.

For a design guide, Oishi shows how one family company can carry a Japanese-sounding name at home and a Chinese name abroad, and keep both recognisable as the same snack brand. Compare Rebisco, the Philippine biscuit maker, and Jack ’n Jill, the Philippine snack brand. For this guide we use a cracker orange, a chilli red and a deep navy with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Oishi’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.