Soy Sauce Gets a Comic Makeover as Kikkoman Charms India with Manga

With a gritty mix of food culture and popular culture, Kikkoman India has launched The Kikkoman Manga, a story campaign to encourage more Indian restaurants to adopt its iconic soy sauce. The manga series Varun & Pramod – Their Secret Ingredient takes the audience through the experiences of two chefs as they transform a struggling restaurant into a food hotspot with Kikkoman Soy Sauce as their secret ingredient.

 

This new project targets over 1.5 million restaurants in India, especially small eateries and home-cooking students who may not know about the brand. The manga will be translated into six Indian languages—English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, and Marathi—to make it very accessible.

 

Indian Federation of Culinary Associations President and Kikkoman India Industry Advisor, Chef Manjit Gill, embraced the campaign, calling it a flashback to his kitchen days in his early life. "I am confident that Kikkoman's message will touch a lot of chefs in India," he said.

 

With this campaign, Kikkoman aims to penetrate deeper into India's food diversity, so that its soy sauce is not only a Japanese favorite but also a Malaysian Malaysian in Indian and Chinese cuisine.

 

Sources: Business Standard, The Wire, Devdiscourse