Japanese giant desires soy sauce to be the ‘ketchup of India’

Issued on: 29/08/2021 – 05:18Modified: 29/08/2021 – 05:16

Mumbai (AFP)

Every dish preferences greater with a sprint of soy sauce, even dessert: that’s the bold pitch of Japanese food large Kikkoman, hoping to persuade Indians to use it in curries, sweets and everything in amongst.

Convincing 1.3 billion people to insert a staple of East Asian cuisine to their butter hen and samosas is no cakewalk but it will possible be simpler than the brand’s 1960s thrust into the United States.

“When we entered the US, individuals imagined we had been selling bug juice mainly because of its dark color,” Harry Hakuei Kosato, Kikkoman’s India agent, informed AFP.

These days the brand’s funnel-shaped dispenser is a ubiquitous presence in US households, accounting for fifty percent of the firm’s $4.4 billion revenues, and Kikkoman now hopes to replicate that success in India.

Product sales ended up boosted by the West’s developing craze for Japanese cuisine considering the fact that the 1980s, but the corporation is taking a diverse method to India, which is property to a considerable vegetarian populace.

“It is not about receiving everybody to consume sushi. We want our soy sauce to grow to be the ketchup of India,” said Kosato.

He hopes that the transfer to market the sauce as an endlessly adaptable condiment will strike a chord in a state wherever culinary innovation is component of street food items lifestyle.

For occasion, Mumbai’s grilled Bombay Sandwich — a hawker staple — is a buttered British-type toastie, but with a filling that incorporates boiled potato, onion, tomato, beetroot, and coriander chutney, topped with a sprinkling of “sev”, a crunchy deep-fried Indian snack.

So it is potentially unsurprising that some Indian cooks began utilizing soy sauce in their dishes very long ahead of Kikkoman introduced in the nation earlier this calendar year.

– ‘Chef’s secret’ –

Restaurateur Prashant Issar 1st deployed it in a biryani six many years ago, whilst jogging Mirchi and Mime, a Mumbai restaurant showcasing modern-day Indian cuisine.

Since then he has additional a sprint of soy sauce to a variety of nearby dishes, from samosas to lamb keema.

“When I tried out it with keema pao, it was just like ‘oh my god’. It was an explosion of flavours,” Issar instructed AFP.

“It has this indefinable umami flavour, this tart, sharp top quality you can not come across any where else,” he explained, describing it as “a bit of a chef’s key”.

Kikkoman is now hoping to get the word out to everyday Indians and counting on social media influencers like Shalini Kapoor to drum up an appetite for its product or service.

For Kapoor, a house chef who by no means appreciated the “synthetic” taste of regionally-offered soy sauces and couldn’t visualize employing the condiment in Indian foods, the effects have been revelatory.

She has even utilized it to make jalebis — a deep-fried pretzel soaked in sugar syrup.

“I consider it can be awesome in Indian desserts,” she advised AFP.

But it may take the relaxation of India a lot more time to capture up to the idea, she acknowledged.

“They just require to get a flavor of it.”

© 2021 AFP