Taiwan Today

Indispensable for daily cooking, traditional sauces made from black beans or soybeans are changing with the times.

To find out what Xiluo is famous for, one just needs to drive around the old town for a couple of minutes. As signboards advertising various brands of bean sauce can be seen everywhere, it is easy to conclude that Xiluo Township in Yunlin County, central Taiwan is home of the condiment that is indispensable for local cooks and gourmets. “You’ll find old producers of bean sauce here, many of them having operated on a small scale for decades,” says Brian Chuang, a younger member of the Chuang family that runs Wuan Chuang Food Industrial Co., a bean sauce maker based in Xiluo.

Established in 1909 by Chuang’s great grandfather during the Japanese colonial era (1895–1945), Wuan Chuang has been producing and selling bean sauce for such a long time that the company has become an icon in Taiwan. In fact, Wuan Chuang’s 100th anniversary inspired an exhibition on Taiwan’s bean sauce industry last year at Taipei’s National Taiwan Museum, which is just one year older than the company. The oldest museum in Taiwan notes that the exhibition, which focused on the production of bean sauces on the island, was the institution’s first to look at a traditional industry.

Wuan Chuang is unique not only for its long history, but also for its preservation of traditional production techniques. According to the Taipei exhibition, the forerunner of bean sauce—a kind of sauce made from fermented minced meat—was first recorded in the Chinese classic The Rites of Zhou more than 3,000 years ago. Gradually beans replaced minced meat, becoming the major ingredient of the sauce that was later introduced from mainland China to the rest of East Asia. In the 17th century a large number of mainland Chinese moved to Taiwan, bringing with them the techniques for making black bean sauce. Members of the Chuang family learned those traditional skills 100 years ago and are still using them today.

“Sauce made from black beans is more nutritious and the taste lasts longer,” says Chuang Ying-chih, Brian Chuang’s uncle and the company’s general manager, comparing black bean sauce to soy sauce. The key differences between the sauces are that soy sauce is usually mixed with roasted wheat and is used more widely than black bean sauce in Taiwan today.

According to Chuang Ying-chih, soybean sauces started to appear in Taiwan only after the method for mass-producing them was introduced to the island by the Japanese in 1941 when World War II intensified in the Pacific. “At the time the Japanese government faced a shortage of supplies and began to strictly control the production of essentials. All the bean sauce plants were ordered to make soy sauce, including Wuan Chuang,” Chuang Ying-chih says.

In contrast stands the traditional manual method for producing black bean sauce, which started to appear again with the end of Japanese rule. Brian Chuang believes that people make better sauce than machines because in mass production little attention is paid to the details that are crucial to the quality of the final product. Making black bean sauce involves preparing the beans, cultivating mold to grow on them, and then placing them in meter-high earthenware pots under the sun for fermentation, which lasts at least four months. During the week-long molding stage, “We take care of these black beans as if they are our children,” Chuang Ying-chih says. “If the weather is too warm, we cool them with electric fans. If it’s too cold, we turn on the heater.”

Meanwhile, the Japanese legacy of machine-assisted production has meant that the manufacture of soy sauce has increased phenomenally since the 1960s. This had led to changes in local culinary habits, says Chuang Yueh-chiao, formerly a head chef at an upscale restaurant in Taipei. “You cannot produce handmade sauce in large amounts, so you must economize on it and use it mainly as a dip,” she says. “But with cheaper, mass-produced sauces, people started to use it to make stewed pork, for example, a dish quite common in Taiwan now.”

To stay competitive, Wuan Chuang has partially mechanized the procedure for making black bean sauce. It also has continued making soy sauce since the early 1940s, with the soy sauce mass-produced in the neighboring town of Erlun since 1988. However, the company is still billed as Taiwan’s number one producer of handmade black bean sauce. The ratio of the amount of soy sauce to that of black bean sauce is about seven to three, Brian Chuang estimates, but these two segments are equal in the revenues they create, since black bean sauce is generally more expensive than soy sauce. A 420-milliliter bottle of Wuan Chuang’s premium black bean sauce sells for NT$300 (US$9), but the same-size bottle of average soy sauce from the company fetches only one-sixth the price.

As soy sauce is so popular in Taiwan, the largest local soy sauce makers have also become well known brands. Technical know-how from Japan has also played a significant role for Taiwan’s sauce makers. “The company introduced advanced and efficient equipment [from Japan] in the mid-1980s and many of our executives have been there to learn about sauce-making techniques,” says Amos Yang, director of marketing for Kimlan Foods Co. Founded in 1936 in Taoyuan County, northern Taiwan, Kimlan focuses only on soy sauce production and is currently one of Taiwan’s two biggest bean sauce makers.

Sweeter Soy Sauce

The other is President Kikkoman Inc. based in Tainan County, southern Taiwan, a joint venture between Taiwan’s Uni-President Enterprise Corp. and Kikkoman Corp. from Japan. Founded only in 1990, the company already has succeeded in cultivating a taste for a sweeter version of traditional soy sauce among local consumers through publicity and marketing, according to Yang. To keep up with its competitor, Kimlan has added a sweeter-tasting soy sauce to its product line, as has Wuan Chuang. “Consumers vary widely in their tastes, so we have to provide a wide selection of products,” says Brian Chuang.

When it comes to imported soy sauces, Japan is the only provider in Taiwan, although imported soy sauce has no more than a 5 percent share of the market, says Chang Shu-chen, secretary-general of the Taiwan Fermenting Food Industry Association. “They’re generally saltier and more expensive than Taiwan’s products,” she says. Taiwan’s sauces usually have a salt content from 14 to 16 percent, whereas the level is between 16 to 18 percent for Japanese imports, Chang explains.

To reach more consumers and retain its leading position, Kimlan has developed specialty products such as soy sauce that uses Job’s tears, a tropical plant native to East Asia. “Wheat is replaced by Job’s tears, which is more nutritious,” says Chen Yi-te, a researcher at Kimlan. “And this product undergoes a two-stage fermentation process lasting nine months in total, which contributes to an even more mellow taste.” When it comes to thick soy sauce, which is mostly used as a dip, Chen notes that Kimlan’s version is special as well because the sauce is thickened with glutinous rice, instead of the cheaper, but less nutritious, modified starch widely used as a thickening agent.

Health Conscious

The company also produces sauce from non-genetically modified soybeans imported from India, with Chen explaining that the United States is Taiwan’s major provider of soybeans, but 90 percent are genetically modified. “Whether or not genetically modified foods can damage health is still controversial, but some consumers take the issue very seriously,” Chen says of the company’s reason for launching the product.

Similarly, Wuan Chuang has diversified its product line to meet demands from increasingly health-conscious consumers. In the past two years the company has released two new sauces reflecting this trend: One is made from organically produced ingredients and the other is mixed with red yeast rice, which is believed to have health benefits such as the ability to reduce cholesterol. For people who need a less salty diet, both companies produce low-sodium sauces, which are defined as having no more than 12 percent salt content.

With the advances in sterilizing technologies for production equipment, these days sauce manufacturers are using limited amounts of preservatives or none at all. A survey by the Consumers’ Foundation at the end of 2006 of 29 bean sauce products from various companies indicated that, although 14 of the items tested contained some preservatives, all were below official limits.

Meanwhile, major soy sauce manufacturers in Taiwan are getting serious about developing a healthier fermentation process, according to Chang Shu-chen from Taiwan Fermenting Food Industry Association. Traditionally microorganisms are used to break down proteins in the beans in a natural fermentation process, which takes about four to six months. Some sauce makers cut corners, however, and replace the natural decomposing agents with hydrochloric acid to shorten the processing time to only three to seven days before neutralizing the acidity with an alkali. This “chemical sauce” is cheap, but often has a sharp smell and, more seriously, is carcinogenic, according to Chang. Many sauce makers are improving the quality of their products, however, she says.

All Natural

In 2002, Chang’s association began a series of public activities to promote products that use natural fermentation methods. Now, it has become more common for major soy sauce makers to produce sauces that undergo a completely natural fermentation process for the retail market, as well as products that include at least some naturally fermented sauce for restaurants and food manufacturers. “The number of naturally fermented items targeting the retail market has grown by 10 percent,” Chang says. However, she is still wary about dining out at roadside food stalls whose sauces, she says, are more likely to have come from smaller factories, which often make low-quality products that rely on artificial fermentation methods. Of the more than 200 bean sauce producers operating in Taiwan, she deems only around 20 as “large,” with an annual revenue exceeding NT$50 million (US$1.5 million), although those businesses command most of the local market.

While the push for healthier sauces is helping to win the trust of local consumers, Taiwanese bean sauce makers are seeking further opportunities to develop their markets. Wuan Chuang repackaged its premium products and the design won the Taiwan Packaging Star in 2004, an award granted annually by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. Around the same time, the company opened its first retail shop in Taipei and began to sell products at high-end supermarkets in department stores around Taiwan.

And both Kimlan and Wuan Chuang are looking to mainland China, certainly the largest consumer in the world of bean sauces, to boost their sales. Having long been plagued by food safety issues, the mainland is a potentially huge market for bean sauces and other foods made in Taiwan. “Everyone in the crowd was jostling for position to buy our sauces,” says Chen Yi-te of the popularity of Kimlan products at the Taiwan Trade Fair in Nanjing, mainland China in mid-September last year. “They even asked for the floor samples when we ran out of stock for the day.”

“We’re already providing products to food manufacturers on the mainland, but now we’re looking to its retail market,” Amos Yang says. “That’s exactly why Kimlan went to the Nanjing fair.” Although it is a traditional business, bean sauce manufacturing apparently still has new terrain to explore.

Write to Oscar Chung at oscar@mail.gio.gov.tw