NORTH STONINGTON, Conn. — North Stonington could stake the claim that they are “Flavortown”. Bob Florence thinks so.
Florence is a trained polymer chemist who has worked for companies like Apple and GE all over the world. But four years ago, Florence started Moromi Artisanal Shoyu, “Moromi” for short– a high end soy sauce that is now finding its way into store shelves and restaurants.
“I started making soy sauce out of curiosity,” Florence said. He even ventured to Japan to learn from some of the master soy sauce makers and decided to take the leap and bottle his own product back home.
Moromi, which translates to “mash” in English, is a combination of Florence’s passion and professional knowledge as a chemist. The small batch artisanal soy sauce is made inside an industrial building where Bob has all the high-tech machinery and barrels needed to produce Moromi, which now comes in seven varieties.
“This is an art,” he added, “It’s very similar to beer making -- in beer what you’re doing is using yeast to drive the reaction and what you’re doing with Koji, (the mold responsible for creating soy sauce) is that Koji is just a different mold, a different organism to make good stuff.”
Stacked in crates on the gleaming factory floor, the decorative bottles of Moromi await delivery to area grocery stores, specialty markets, and restaurants. Florence also has a website and ships his products, including a hot sauce, to customers across the country.
He added, “My goal in life is to just make really good soy sauce.”
To learn more about Moromi, click here.
Jimmy Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at jaltman@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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