3rd-Gen Boss Of Nanyang Sauce Factory Offers $10K Bespoke Soy Sauce

“My customers got very creative”

The idea came from customers during the pandemic. One woman, whose husband had invested in a whisky cask, asked if Ken could make a vat of soy sauce bearing her family’s name.

“My customers got very creative,” he recalls. His first reaction? “That sounds crazy.”

Nanyang’s soy sauce employs traditional sun fermentation that already takes nine months. Developing a personalised version would require even more time and work, so he declined. A second request received the same answer.

A third customer, a Hong Kong businesswoman, finally changed his mind. She understood that he had to buy ingredients and spend months brewing before waiting for retailers to pay him.

“Ma’am, you really understand me,” he recalls telling her.

Her offer was to pay upfront and collect her sauce later. The arrangement would help with cash flow, and Ken agreed. He then went back to the first two customers to offer them the service too.

Special water from Hawaii? Sure

Customers start by rating their preferences across eight taste characteristics, including umami, saltiness and astringency. Ken uses those preferences to work out the recipe.

They can also choose the soybeans, salt and water. Requests have included French and Himalayan salt, while one American customer specified a particular water sourced from beneath the seabed in Hawaii. Ken describes it as fresh water, rather than seawater.

The team first makes a small trial batch, which customers taste after around three to six months. They can request up to three rounds of adjustments before full-vat production, though Ken says they have so far settled customers’ preferences within one or two rounds.

Bottles and labels can be personalised too. His customers include businesspeople, bankers and celebrities, though he declines to name them. Some keep the sauce for their households; others give it to friends or clients.

A batch for his daughter’s future wedding

One father commissioned a batch for his daughter’s birthday, then asked Ken to continue ageing it, for an additional fee, until her eventual wedding celebration. He plans to distribute the sauce then.

“I cannot tell my [own] daughter, later she would get jealous,” Ken quips.

A vat generally yields 50 to 70 litres, or approximately 100 to 140 bottles of 500ml each. The final yield depends partly on evaporation and weather conditions.

The choice of ingredients and additional ageing affect the bill. Despite the five-figure price tag, making personalised sauce remains labour-intensive. As Ken puts it: “It’s very hard earned money.”

He estimates that fewer than 10 per cent of the factory’s roughly 300 earthenware vats are used for bespoke orders. Some vessels are over a century old, including vats rescued from other sauce makers that closed.

There is a waiting list of about two-and-a-half years, says Ken. Rather than take deposits from everyone in the queue, he contacts the next customer when a vat becomes available.

“If I can’t be the biggest, I’ll be the slowest”

The service is part of Ken’s efforts to rejuvenate the family business, into which he estimates he has invested a low six-figure sum over time.

A tour of 13 sauce factories around Asia helped him rethink its strengths. At a large factory in China, he was stunned to learn that its hourly output exceeded Nanyang’s annual production.

“One hour more than my one year, you know?” he recalls.

Then he visited the factory’s museum and saw displays depicting sauce-making centuries ago. The methods resembled those his family was still using in Singapore.

That sparked a revelation: “If I can’t be the biggest, I’ll be the slowest.”

Besides sauce, Ken runs workshops through Nanyang’s Sauce Academy. He also co-owned the now-closed Big Dot Chicken stall at Chinatown Complex, though Nanyang remained his main focus throughout that venture.

Why ‘virgin’ soy sauce costs $26 a bottle

Nanyang’s Virgin Brew light soy sauce ($26 for 500ml) is the first extraction after nine months of fermentation. Ken likens it to the first brew from a pot of tea: richer in umami, with a more concentrated flavour.

Once that sauce is extracted, the team adds brine to the remaining beans and ferments them for another two to three months. This second extraction becomes its cheaper Premium range ($13.90 for 500ml). According to Ken, Virgin Brew commands a higher price because it is the prized first brew and available in more limited quantities.

Its wine-like glass bottle, meanwhile, was a packaging choice.

For something more indulgent, Aged 12 Virgin Brew light soy sauce ($36.90 for 500ml) undergoes another 12 months of ageing after the initial nine-month fermentation. “It’s more complex, more layered,” says Ken.

He recommends trying the sauce on soft-boiled eggs to notice its flavour. At home, he uses Premium for braising, Virgin Brew for dipping, steaming and stir-frying, and Aged 12 for special occasions.

$96 soy salt he never thought anyone would buy

There’s also Nanyang Soy Salt ($96 for 100g), dark crystals Ken calls “black diamonds”. He says they form as soy sauce evaporates and ages in vats over more than 10 years.

“We have this product, but we never sold it because we never thought anybody would want to buy it,” he explains.

That changed when a Hong Kong customer visited Nanyang’s former East Coast shop specifically asking for soy salt. Ken was surprised by both the demand and what the customer was willing to pay.

Encouraged by a friend, he launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2019. It attracted 439 backers who pledged $73,964.

He describes the crystals as an “umami bomb”, used sparingly over steak or in soups. One customer even adds them to hot chocolate.

Nanyang Sauce is located at 18 Chin Bee Ave, S619940. Visits by prior appointment only. More info via its website. A limited range is also available at Cold Storage, FairPrice Finest and RedMart.