Things have taken a saucy turn after my visit to the Wisconsin Ave Safeway in Georgetown. This specific grocery store is dubbed the “Social Safeway”, however the most social contact I end up having is nearly being run over by a reckless little kid on the loose with his miniature grocery cart in the produce aisle.
I visit Safeway on a Sunday afternoon, at a time when customers stock up for the new week ahead. The superstore is fairly busy with young people, seniors, and groups that may be shopping around.
As I take the escalator up to the main floor and slowly roll up to the many aisles ahead, I anticipate that the soy sauce will take some time to locate. After walking past all 15 aisles, the soy sauce is in the second to last aisle of the store. The aisle sign says: “Asian Foods and International Foods”.
I pass by instant noodles, rice meals, and seaweed before I reach the soy sauce, which is at the edge of the Asian foods section. All soy sauces have reduced sodium labels. Gluten-free options are available as well. The descriptions for each bottle emphasize the quality of its ingredients and how customer satisfaction is guaranteed. All prices are pretty cheap too ($2-4), with the most expensive (and biggest ounces per bottle) ringing in at $6.49. Many sauces have yellow price tags, offering “club price” deals for Safeway card members.
The brands available range from San J and Kikkoman (Japanese imported) to Safeway’s generic Signature Kitchens and Signature Kitchens Select. The design on all soy sauces has at least a Chinese or Japanese culture and/or a symbol that resembles Asian culture. Big jugs of soy sauce are on the bottom shelf as well as a sweet soy sauce used for rice, which I have not seen in previous stores.
In terms of the quality of ingredients and origin, La Choy’s All Purpose Soy Sauce is most concerning. The label is not hard to miss–a giant red Chinese character translating to “East” followed by two characters on the side that both translate to “air”. My mom, who speaks Chinese, later confirmed these translations are correct as she said via text message: “putting these two characters is nonsense”.
The bottom of the bottle says “Inspired by Traditional Asian Cuisine”. Much to my dismay, its ingredients are quite the contrary: hydrolyzed soy protein, corn syrup, coloring, and a preservative. Yummy. Where is this soy sauce produced? Omaha, Nebraska. Out of all the soy sauces I have consumed in my life as an Asian American, I have never seen such an unhealthy and offensive product.
Is this what soy sauce is cracked up to be? More to come!
