Eiichi Shibusawa Gift Shop to Sell Snack Bread Resembling New ¥10,000 Bill Featuring Meiji-era Businessman

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:51 JST, April 17, 2024

To commemorate the upcoming issuance of a new ¥10,000 bill featuring Meiji-era luminary Eiichi Shibusawa, a Tokyo gift shop dedicated to the legendary Japanese businessman plans to begin sales Friday of a snack bread resembling the banknote.

Ouei, the operator of the “Shibusawa Ippinkan Tsunagumarche” gift shop in Kita Ward, said it has spent the past six months working on the product in anticipation of the new bill’s entry into circulation on July 3.

Shibusawa (1840-1931) was a pioneering industrialist who has been dubbed the “father of Japanese capitalism.”

The snack bread measures 7 centimeters long by 16 centimeters wide, has a thickness of 1 centimeter to resemble of a wad of ¥10,000 notes totalling ¥1 million. It has been priced at ¥550 and is filled with a sweet potato paste.