A chocolate-maker launched in 2014 in Japan by an entrepreneur with a dream of encouraging a more inclusive society has proven a success, with its many workers with disabilities or mental health issues playing important roles in its method of making high-quality products.

In one of its most recent initiatives, Quon chocolate, based in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, but with branches nationwide, started a new factory, named powder lab, in June 2021, employing around 10 severely intellectually disabled people.

They take on the kind of small-scale tasks that would otherwise be hard to incorporate in the production process — for instance, making green tea powder in small quantities from different parts of leaves and stems, allowing for the fine adjustment of flavors among the firm's green tea chocolates.