4401

Adeka Corp

A maker of specialty chemicals and food products, Adeka supplies margarines, shortenings and whipping cream to bakeries and confectioners under its RISU brand, while its chemicals division crafts additives and materials used in plastics, semiconductors and cars. It traces its roots to a Tokyo caustic-soda factory founded in 1915 by the Furukawa group, which later branched into hydrogenated oils. The name is simply a shortened form of its old name, Asahi Denka — and its food division goes by "RISU," the Japanese word for squirrel.