Did You Know Wisconsin is The Soy Sauce Capital of The World?

We all know that Wisconsin is known for its cheese and its beer, but I bet you didn't know that Wisconsin also brews more soy sauce than any other state.

Kikkoman Soy Sauce is by far the most popular brand of the liquid condiment, each year the company makes 100s of millions of gallons of the black liquid, and about 30% of their yearly production happens in a plant in Wisconsin, and they're in the process of building a new, state-of-the-art plant.

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In 1973 Kikkoman build its first Wisconsin plant in Walworth, WI and they currently brew about 29 million gallons of soy sauce per year there, which is about 30% of the company's entire production worldwide, and is the largest soy sauce brewing facility in the world.

Kikkoman is looking to add to their Wisconsin footprint by building a second production facility in Jefferson, Wisconsin, which is located about halfway between Madison and Milwaukee. The new 240,000 square-foot facility will be "a sustainable next-generation production plant that combines flexibility with production efficiency and scalability for multi-production of a variety of products," according to a press release.

Groundbreaking on the new plant happened on June 12th and it is scheduled to start shipping product in the fall of 2026, the new facility will focus on making its popular soy sauce and other soy sauce-related seasonings, including teriyaki. This will be the third Kikkoman in the United States, two in Wisconsin and one in California.

Kikkoman has been brewing soy sauce since, get this, 1603, they were founded in Japan over 420 years ago, and have 6 other manufacturing facilities around the globe.