Leading Japanese soy sauce producer Kikkoman Corp. has revealed that it will attempt to boost foreign sales by increasing production at overseas plants in Singapore and the US.
The company aims overall to raise foreign sales by 60%, because with domestic output levelling off, it “will have to rely on overseas markets for future business expansion,” Kikkoman president Yuzaburo Mogi told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
Kikkoman will double the annual output capacity of its Singapore plant within the next seven years, to 20,000 kiloliters. It will also invest ¥4bn (US$31.7m) in building an additional plant in the area, which will launch operations from late 2002, in order to meet growing demand for high-quality honjozo soy sauce in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
The company operates two soy sauce plants in the US and will also soon begin making powdered soy sauce at a new facility in the US for use in instant noodle products.
By next spring, Kikkoman also aims to start production at a new Chinese plant and expand a plant in the Netherlands.
