A $15,000 commercial rebate from the Regional Water Authority in partnership with the California Department of Water Resources helped make the upgrade possible
By Debbie Arrington
For additional information about CII rebates: |
Water brought a major Japanese sauce and seasoning maker to West Sacramento. Saving water changed the way their products are bottled – and added up to big cost savings, too.
Nippon Shokken USA is a subsidiary of Nihon Shokken Group, Japan’s No. 1 producer of liquid seasonings such as eel sauce and teriyaki sauce. Its happy cow mascot Banko is internationally famous. Founded in 1971, the company is dedicated to promoting “deliciousness” and “convenience” through its extensive line of condiments and seasonings.
In 2013, the company opened a 70,000-square-foot plant in West Sacramento. That site selection was influenced in part by the presence of a Japanese company, which had built a production facility in Folsom. Besides Japanese roots, both companies share another interest: They need access to good quality water to brew their products.
“The water quality here is very good,” explains Yuji Makimoto, senior general manager for Nippon Shokken USA. “Water is a very important ingredient in our products.”
Water isn’t just essential for the ingredients in their sauces but also is vital in the bottling process. At its West Sacramento plant, Nippon Shokken USA turns out about 60,000 bottles a day. Each bottle is filled with hot ingredients and then quickly cooled in a water-filled tunnel called a Process Cooling Water System.
The more bottles of sauces it produced, the more water the company needed. “Our demand was increasing rapidly,” Makimoto says. “We needed to expand.”
That also created an opportunity, he explains.
“Three years ago, we started our facility expansion project. We asked the (West Sacramento) city manager and the economic development division (for input). We were told we needed to be conservative with the water we were using due to the recent drought.”
Japan is not unfamiliar with water conservation, he notes. “We also have drought in Japan. We got advice from other bottling companies (on ways to conserve). They told us we can recycle cooling water.
Nippon Shokken USA reached out to United Mechanical, which specializes in industrial plumbing design and construction projects. They proposed a custom Process Cooling Water System that recycles the water used to quickly bring down bottle temperatures so the bottles seal correctly. In addition, bottles need to be cooled so they can be handled and labeled; paper labels won’t stick to a hot bottle.
West Sacramento city officials put Nippon Shokken USA in touch with the Regional Water Authority (RWA), which offers commercial rebates for such projects with support from the California Department of Water Resources. After analyzing the company’s plans, the $192,000 project qualified for the RWA’s maximum $15,000 rebate.
In 2023, Nippon Shokken USA installed the new cooling system and got immediate results.
The old cooling system used water only once, explains production assistant manager Jesus Aguirre. Pumped in from city lines, the water ran through the cooling system and then flowed out to the sewer.
Now, the same water can be used five or six times before flushing. That’s created huge savings.
“The past five months, we’ve reduced our water consumption by 45 to 50%,” says Nicholas McKinney, the plant’s purchasing manager.
McKinney has been tracking water use and comparing it to past years. In May 2022, the plant used 584,000 gallons; in May 2024, water use was only 303,000. That’s 281,000 gallons in savings or 48%.
Overall, the plant expects to save at least 2.66 million gallons a year with its new cooling system, say company officials. The new equipment has a lifespan of at least 20 years. That adds up to more than 53 million gallons of water savings – the equivalent of 1.36 billion bottles. That’s a whole lot of conservation-minded sauces, made in West Sacramento.
