With a history spanning over 350 years and based in Japan, the current Kikkoman corporate entity was established through the merger of eight families in 1917. The company’s internationalisation strategy began some 60 years ago, with its entry into the United States market. Kikkoman has become a global business, expanding to over 100 countries, with 11 soy sauce production sites worldwide that distribute its products all over the world to millions of consumers. Observing the recent entry of the company into the Indian market, nuFFooDS Spectrum got into a detailed conversation with Harry Hakuei Kosato – Director of Kikkoman India and India Representative at Kikkoman Corporation, to know more about the company’s growth plans in India. Edited excerpts;
What is so unique about your recently launched Soy Sauce product and how do you foresee its growth in the coming months?
Kikkoman Soy Sauce from Japan is a naturally brewed all-purpose seasoning, made with the traditional authentic Honjozo method, and is Japan’s number 1 soy sauce brand, sold in over 100 countries, with millions of customers using our soysauce every day. Our sales volume is currently 516.4 billion yen, and the brand has an over 350 years old history of producing soy sauce.
We expect to grow every year for the next 100 years in India, in the same way that India’s economy has been growing rapidly. We expect more HORECA outlets and retail outlets to start stocking and using Kikkoman soy sauce in the coming months.
It is a versatile product, which can be used in multiple cuisines around the world. Our growth will also be contributed by the growth of the Indian Chinese and Pan-Asian category of cuisines in India. Dining at Indian Chinese and Pan-Asian restaurants would encourage people to cook these dishes on their own at home, using Kikkoman Soy Sauce.
Who are your competitors and what are your marketing strategies?
Our sales volume is currently 516.4 billion yen, and the brand has an over 350 years old history of producing soy sauce. Given these facts, there are no real competitors as Kikkoman Soy Sauce is truly unique, and is different from chemically produced soy sauces.
First, we are hoping to become the most authentic brand amongst the Indian Chinese category in India’s food service sector. With the growing popularity of Indian Chinese cuisine, there will be a greater chance for our product to further penetrate the market and Indian households. We strongly hope that Kikkoman will become the most preferred soy sauce brand in the food service industry that would also be a strong appeal to end-customers in households and help market penetration – this is our marketing strategy in India.
Second, we will utilise digital and other platforms to convey our marketing message to both chefs and consumers in India for more people to realise the difference between our Soy Sauce and all the others available in India.
How do you plan to promote your latest product- Oyster Sauce in the Indian market? Are you planning to collaborate with domestic companies for production?
Our Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce is a new product produced for the Indian market. We have spent two years in the research and development of this new sauce while using Kikkoman Soy Sauce as a base sauce. We encourage all our customers to use Kikkoman Oyster Flavored sauce together with our main product, Kikkoman Soy Sauce. Adding these two sauces would make any dish even more tasty and flavourful.
We have reached out to our distributors and directly visited hundreds of restaurants across India for chefs to try our Oyster Flavored Sauce product. In fact, many chefs have been so excited to see a vegetarian Oyster Flavored Sauce product from us. Some chefs used Kikkoman Oyster Flavored Sauce during our sales visit, and immediately decided to switch to using our product, which was very encouraging.
The product is currently produced outside of India, but in the future, we may consider locally producing in India.
Are you planning to launch more products in India this year?
Yes, we are. We currently sell four SKUs of naturally brewed all-purpose Kikkoman Soy Sauce made with the traditional authentic Honjozo method, and two SKUs of Kikkoman Oyster Flavoured Sauce which we recently launched in the Indian market.
It is difficult to unveil the details of our future plan at this point, but we plan to introduce more products to the HORECA and the retail market in India. We are hoping to gradually expand the range of products in India.
What is the current size of the culinary sauces market in India?
There are various ways of estimating the size of the culinary sauces market in India. Some have said it is around $3.70 billion, and growing rapidly, with an annual growth of 6 per cent. However, in response to the pandemic, more households started to cook on their own at home. In that sense, we expect further growth in the household market. On the other hand, the recovery of sales in the food service sector has also been remarkable over the last few months as the sales to hotels, restaurants, and cloud kitchens recorded double-digit growth.
Kikkoman aims to be No 1 in the Asian Sauces category of the culinary sauces market in India, and we already have seen early acceptance of Kikkoman Soy Sauce as a seasoning of choice amongst the top 500 plus chefs in India. We continue to grow and shall introduce more products to boost our market share both in the HORECA and the retail market. The growth of E-commerce is also expected, and we shall increase our presence here too. This year we will further increase our physical presence in retail stores across the key metropolitan cities of India, and in the many cities that we are already selling Kikkoman Soy Sauce.
In comparison with other countries, is the culinary sauces market in India facing any major challenges?
First of all, we shall deploy marketing and product development technical know-how and practices that we have learned in the US, European, and Japanese markets in the growing Indian market. All future products in India will thus benefit from our proprietary craftsmanship developed in our other key markets.
One challenge is that not many customers are, as yet, aware of the difference between naturally brewed Kikkoman Soy Sauce and all other chemically produced soy sauces readily available in the market. We are hoping to change the customer perception of naturally brewed Soy Sauce through the aforementioned marketing activities.
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Dr Manbeena Chawla
(manbeena.chawla@mmactiv.com)