San-J President Takashi Sato
I first encountered tamari over 20 years ago at a local restaurant. Visible from the counter, a squatty bottle of San-J sat on a shelf, eager to splash seared tuna. The inky potion added a depth of flavor, but with less saltiness than most soy sauces. It caramelized with applied heat, and when plated, it pooled around the fish, blanketing the pink flesh with umami. It was part of a pan sauce that you wanted to infuse into your tongue rather than mindlessly swallow. At the time, I had no idea that San-J products were fermented just a few miles away, at a factory near Richmond International Airport.
Tamari is a subcategory of soy sauce, a byproduct of miso paste production. In Japan, it’s thought of as the soy sauce for fish. Unlike the broader category of soy sauce, tamari is made strictly with soybeans, rather than the standard 1:1 ratio of soy and wheat used in lighter, Chinese-style soy sauces. Naturally gluten-free, it’s thicker and velvety, with a more nuanced salinity than ordinary soy sauce. Think of tamari like homemade chicken stock, and soy sauce as store-bought chicken broth. Both have their uses.
The Sato family founded San-Jirushi, San-J’s parent company, in the river town of Mie, Japan in 1804. In 1974, San-J opened its Richmond office to begin distribution in the U.S. market. The Henrico production facility was added in 1987, marking the first tamari brewing facility in the country. The three rivers of Mie not only inspired the San-J logo — the bars on its revamped labels represent those rivers — but also provided the humidity for tamari production. Though we may curse Richmond’s summer humidity, it is essentially what brought San-J to town.
Tamari is naturally gluten-free.
The company’s current president, Takashi Sato, is the eighth generation of the family to lead San-J production. Via email, Sato explains that “some elements affect our fermentation process, including water and humidity. Water should be softer, and we need higher humidity. It’s possible to add humidity by placing a big humidifier; but we don’t have to do so if we choose an area where the humidity level is naturally higher.”
It can be easy to forget, in these days of locally sourced, all-natural ingredients, that a concept is rarely new. In 1978, the ‘60s counterculture movement was winding down, but it was still influencing the way people all over the globe live and eat. Sato says, “When we wanted to differentiate ourselves from Kikkoman, we noticed and focused on hippie culture in the United States since it was still active when we opened our office in 1978. Taking the concept of hippie, we wanted to exclude all the additives and to make it natural.”
Unlike some soy sauces, San-J doesn’t use coloring in its products. San-J tamari is different from Kikkoman, one of the most-recognized Japanese food brands, in other ways, too. It is vegan, gluten-free, kosher, non-GMO and FODMAP-friendly, a designation indicating the product is suitable for those with gastrointestinal disorders.
Traveling chef Lauren Bowes, who calls Church Hill home but frequents the Bahamas working on private yachts, caters to gluten-free clients. She swears by San-J sauces.
“I love their tamari, but I think I first started using it mainly because it says ‘gluten-free’ on the label,” Bowes says. “When zooming through the isles provisioning for yachts over the last 14 years, I just kept it handy. Placing the San-J bottle directly on the dining table helps clients feel comfort.”
While 95% of sales from San-J’s Richmond plant are domestic, in Japan only 4% of the soy sauce market comes from the sale of tamari, with hundreds of other soy sauces dominating the industry. And even that market is shrinking, with dozens of soy sauce companies closing every year as Japan’s population decreases and Westernizes its diet.
The San-J production facility in Henrico opened in 1987.
One of Sato’s goals is to grow and support the fermentation industry, not only in Japan, but in the U.S., where he envisions creating a larger market through education. In fall of 2022, San-J hosted a series of ticketed workshops that included factory tours, fermented food tastings, DIY miso kits and one-on-one “genius bar” sessions, where the over 200 attendees got the chance to talk with fermentation experts. San-J will host a second symposium in late 2023.
Sato and a team of educators, artists and scientists tout the idea of fermentourism through the think tank and online platform Hakko Hub. The website offers recipes and hosts historical and culinary tours of Japanese production facilities. “The demand for fermented foods isn’t strong enough in the U.S.,” Sato says. “In order to create demand, it’s important to create/stimulate interest in fermented foods.”
“Hakko” means “fermentation” in Japanese. In the American South, fermentation is often thought of in terms of the lactobacillus organisms found in pickle-making and souring, cultivated historically to build a winter larder. In the East, Aspergillus tamarii spores, known as koji, are added to soybean paste to kick-start the bacteria bacchanalia that results in tamari.
Will Burgess, executive chef at Amuse at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, has long used San-J tamari, both in Chicago at Duck Duck Goat and later in Richmond at Postbellum, where it served as the backbone of a gluten-free tofu vinaigrette.
“I prefer San-J to Kikkoman, not only because it’s gluten-free, but for its intense flavors,” he says. For an Appalachian-themed menu at Amuse, Burgess made his own hot sauce and chow chow, as well as sour corn — all products of fermentation.
Sato, along with a professional recipe developer, creates recipes for the San-J Instagram and Facebook pages, but he doesn’t suggest limiting the sauce to Asian cuisines.
“Soy sauce is just seasoning, which could be used for any menu popular in the U.S., that’s why I introduce common, popular foods like grilled corn or beef steak and encourage customers to try soy sauce over it,” he says. “Some might like the flavor, and some might not. But if some people realize that soy sauce matches to the food which they are familiar with, then it would be a great pleasure for me.”
