Soy Kikkoman
The Economist has a fascinating article on Yuzaburo Mogi, head of Kikkoman, the company that makes soy sauce and much more. He comes from one of the founding families of the company and has been working for it or leading it since 1959.
Hence soy (I am) in Spanish in the heading of this post–get it? I’m quite ridiculously pleased with myself for this multi-language pun.
Do click on the link to the Economist piece. Kikkoman’s foreign sales have grown 10% a year for 25 years. And there are interesting insights into how Kikkoman pulled this off.
And while you are at it, you may not know that Kikkoman supports food history in various ways. Their interesting web site has a map that shows you how to get to their museum, pages on the history of soy sauce and the Kikkoman company, and downloadable pdfs of their periodical which appears about twice a year, has many interesting articles and great illustrations. True, it’s company sponsored history, but I don’t know where else you will find a clear explanation of the differences between how chopsticks are made in Japan and how they are made in the rest of the world.
Nice post Rachel. I read this article as well in the print copy that i get. Lots of insights.