Bangalore, May 2022: The world’s leading producer of naturally brewed soy sauce, Kikkoman Corporation, announces the launch of Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce, which is 100% vegetarian, suitable for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, for the first time in India. To accelerate the distribution of its soy sauce Kikkoman India also initiated a ‘Meet-Use-Experience’ activity across major cities through HORECA. Alongside that, the company has also launched a ‘Recipe Development’ activity featuring 100 multi-cuisine recipes in collaboration with India’s top chefs.
A new addition to the product range is the Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce, carefully crafted, delicious, packed with flavour, and set to become the standard oyster flavoured sauce in India. It is the result of two years of intensive development to bring a new purpose-designed product to the Indian market. It is backed by years of experience arising from Kikkoman’s history spanning over 350 years. The R&D teams spread across Japan, Singapore and India began their work in early 2020, around the time of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. With travel restrictions making it impossible for the teams to travel, they worked separately in their own labs and collaborated on multiple taste-trials including with professional chefs in India. The team was able to successfully develop a product tailor-made for India, with a truly superb and authentic flavour profile. The secret of the new Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce is the fact that it uses Kikkoman Soy Sauce as the key base ingredient. Using Kikkoman Soy Sauce adds depth and complexity to the vegetarian oyster flavour, creating a profound taste and aroma, to the point that it matches, or even exceeds, the taste of the most popular non-vegetarian oyster sauce. India has a diverse set of vegetarians belonging to many and varied communities and we at Kikkoman are committed to bringing more delicious experiences to all vegetarians. Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce perfectly accommodates all vegetarians who love their stir-fries and noodles. It can be used in all vegetarian dishes, including paneer and tofu.
Meet-Use-Experience is the first-of-its-kind, largest sampling of the ‘Kikkoman Soy Sauce – Honjozo Authentic All-Purpose Soy Sauce’ in India. 15,000 bottles of Kikkoman Soy Sauce will be distributed to Tier 1 Indian cities of Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune. This initiative plans to rapidly accelerate the distribution and recognition of Kikkoman Soy Sauce across these cities in the country. This initiative involved distributing 10,000 bottles of 500 ml Kikkoman Soy Sauce to 10,000 restaurants in the HORECA market for the first time. Meanwhile, 5,000 bottles of Kikkoman Soy Sauce will be provided to top culinary institutes and catering colleges in these same seven cities. Kikkoman’s initiative to work with top culinary institutes started with an online seminar in May 2021, where an online session was held with over 100 students from OCLD (Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development). Sampling these 500 ml bottles to students represents Kikkoman’s investment in the next generation of up-and-coming professional chefs.
Furthermore, for its Recipe Development, Kikkoman aims to introduce 100 recipes a year featuring multiple cuisines, including Indian dishes, that will be introduced to both home and professional chefs in India. The brand will be introducing over 50 recipes as the first set of custom-made recipes for India. Working with top professional chefs, Kikkoman seeks to spread awareness about how Kikkoman Soy Sauce can be used in day-to-day cooking to make every meal more delicious. In the first set of recipes for India, Kikkoman has worked with its Brand Ambassadors in Mumbai—Chef Vicky Ratnani (leading chef & restaurateur), Chef Seefah Ketchaiyo and Chef Karan (owners of Seefah restaurant in Mumbai), as well as Prashant Issar (who runs Ishaara in Mumbai)—to create unique recipes using Kikkoman Soy Sauce as a key ingredient. Additionally, some easy-to-make recipes have also been developed for everyday cooking for home chefs. These recipes will soon be uploaded on Kikkoman India’s digital platforms, including Instagram and YouTube. Kikkoman’s all-purpose authentic soy sauce—brewed naturally using the centuries-old Honjozo method—has been used to blend different flavours and combinations to prepare both popular and unique dishes. These new recipes range from Asian cuisine that includes Japanese, Chinese and Thai to Continental, Italian, Indian, Mexican and Indian-Chinese dishes.
