Coconut creations: Sokfarm taps rising sodium reduction trends and production advantages for new soy sauce alternative
Sokfarm specialises in using coconut blossom sap to make a variety of unique products from coconut flower juice to coconut nectar, sweeteners and vinegar, but its latest endeavour has been the development of a new alternative to soy sauce dubbed aminos.
“We have a good footing in the beverage and sweetener markets, but realised that there is also a very big market to tap in the savoury space where soy sauce is one of the most-used condiments,” Sokfarm CEO Dinh Ngai Pham told FoodNavigator-Asia at Thaifex-Anuga Asia 2024.
“Aminos has the advantage of being soy-free as it contains only coconut nectar and sea salt, which makes it a good alternative for those with soy and gluten allergies.
“The ingredients list means that it is also a clean label product, and we only use organic ingredients so it has that advantage as well, in addition to also having 50% less sodium than conventional soy sauce.
“All of these tie in well with ongoing health and wellness trends as well as an increasing demand for sodium reduction in foods and beverages.”
Coconut products are traditionally associated with neutral/creamy profiles (coconut cream, coconut milk) or sweet flavours (coconut sugar, coconut nectar), but Sokfarm also has an environmental advantage in its production process when it comes to Aminos.
“Our coconut nectar is mainly sourced from the Tra Vinh province at the Mekong Delta, and although the coconut industry usually harvests the coconut fruit and not the flowers, this area has a higher concentration of sea salt meaning that some trees only flower but do not fruit,” he said.
“Recently we have seen that the sea water levels have been rising due to climate change, and this has made the raw material, namely the nectar, naturally more salty, thus suitable for Aminos.
“This is a good avenue to increase value for the coconut farmers whilst also putting healthier food items out there on the market as an option for consumers.”
Dinh also highlighted that many markets that have been showing a rising interest in coconut-based products are those that don’t have domestic production, hence believes that the future of the sector looks optimistic.
“It is a big market internationally for us with many markets not having their own coconut supply, such as the EU, Australia, Japan and so on,” he said.
“This was also boosted by the vegan and plant-based product trend in recent years as coconut products can also fit neatly into this category.
“For aminos in particular, we believe Shanghai could be our next star market as soy sauce is such a commonly accepted condiment in the Chinese market, but nectar-based aminos is quite a new thing to consumers there so they will want to try it out as the market there is very adventurous too.”
Aminos exports
In general, Sokfarm already exports its coconut nectar products to multiple markets such as Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States and Australia but has its eye on many more.
“We believe there is strong potential in Poland and closer to home in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and China,” he said.
“I mentioned soy sauce popularity as one of the reasons, as the Asian markets all use a lot of soy sauce, and we can more specifically target the soy-free niche – but our other products such as the coconut flower water and sweeteners are also very suitable for all of these markets due to the current health and food safety trends.
“Coconut blossom sap is incredibly abundant – one hectare of coconut trees can produce around 60 tonnes a year – so the raw material is very sufficient for processing, making this a very sustainable sector.”
