SIAL 2024: King Konjac’s “zero-carb” sushi bites win innovation award
23 Oct 2024 | King Konjac
Sami Gauffin, the CEO of King Konjac, talks to us at SIAL 2024 in Paris, France, about his award-winning “zero-carb” sushi bites made from konjac root. He tells us about the textural challenges of this innovation, the importance of maintaining the authenticity of the original dish given its iconic cultural heritage and plans to expand into the European market.
This is Anvisha from Food Ingredients First.
I'm here with Sami Gin, who's the founder of King Cognac.
Hi Sami.
Hello.
What new products or innovations are you showcasing at CL today?
We are showcasing our.
Award-winning rice alternative product which is here.
It's a rice resembling bites of of cononjak with zero carbs.
And I hear that the zero carb sushi bits has also won the bronze prize for innovation at Cal.
Can you talk to us about what consumer trends it aligns with?
Yes, we like to say that we were one of the 3 top 3.
The winner is a winner, and I would say that we address consumer interest in a healthy product, in an ecological product.
Shortly about that, ecological means that, rice kilo requires 2500 to 5000 L of water.
Cognac is a root veggie.
That can be grown with say 270 L, so there's 500 times less water usage.
Also no methane emissions and no losing of biodiversity.
So it's very ecological as.
Super interesting.
Can you also walk us through the production process of the base of the sushi, which is this product you're holding up?
How do you ensure you get the right taste and texture?
That has been one of the greatest challenges, and actually that is the actual innovation itself.
We use overheated steam, which has the special advantage that it actually takes care of the microbiological microbes possible if there is any in the product.
And this is also one of the 3 things that makes this product to have a shelf life of 6 months in room temperature.
Great.
Now, sushi is a very iconic cultural food.
How do you ensure you maintain the authenticity of the original dish?
This has been of great importance to us.
In fact, we have worked with two Japanese sushi chefs, and now after our trial period, we have come to the conclusion that we use only authentic Japanese ingredients, meaning that we have tamanoi rice vinegar.
Of course, sea salt and because there is zero carbs in the product, we cannot use sugar for sweetening.
Therefore, there is a small, like a pinch of stevia which balance up the three components.
Thanks for sharing.
What are some challenges you faced while developing this product using Konjak and how did you overcome those challenges?
The biggest challenge is, which you can, if you may and want, you can look on YouTube.
There are 300 videos about trying to make a niggery bite out of konjak rice.
It's virtually nearly impossible.
People are using Philadelphia cheese or these kinds of things.
This is the core.
This is the innovation.
This is what we have patented 4 months ago, and already we have received office action about this, and it is clear that we are going to patent the innovation.
What markets are you focusing on for expansion and how are you planning to adapt your products to suit different consumer tastes?
At the moment we are operating in Finland.
We have a facility in Finland.
We, we are now in October and we have already sold our stock until mid January.
We are opening a second facility in Finland by the end of the year.
This means we can expand to the.
Nordic market and we believe maybe next from Nordic is France because France has the biggest sushi consumption per capita in Europe.
French people are very, very interested in sushi.
Thank you so much for sharing.
We're very excited to see where this goes.
