For 74 years, Simon Woo's family has been brewing soya sauce using the traditional method of fermenting soy beans in vats under the sun.The fermenting period lasts for at least a year for light soya sauce, and a year and a half for dark soya sauce. It's not a particularly lucrative business, but has sustained the Woo family for three generations. While big and small soya sauce manufacturing factories mushroomed in 1943, the year his father began the business, most of them have dropped off the scene. A pool of supporters for their artisan soya sauce has helped kept the business alive, especially as a long fermenting period, a lack of space, and a belief in creating quality products meant that the Woo do not mass produce their products for sale in supermarkets. The Straits Times executive photojournalist Ng Sor Luan takes a look at how a Singaporean company sticks to tradition and persists in doing what they believe in despite challenges.
Story published on: Jun 12, 2017 (straitstimes.com/singapore/soya-sauce-steeped-in-tradition)