How to Participate:

1. Students MUST be full-time students to be eligible to participate.
2. Students MUST be the age of 21 by August 2025
3. Registration: Register to compete using the form below by February 11, 2025.
4. Submit a 60-second video describing your entrée creation. Feel free to use your creativity to showcase how you will be creating your entrée. This can range from verbal explanations to illustrations, etc.
5. Entree creation and submission. 8 finalists will be selected and notified by February 24, 2025, and will have until March 28, 2025, to create an original Entree using Kikkoman® Soy Sauce. (Students will be partnered with a mentor from February 25, 2025 – March 28, 2025 for training)
6. All finalists will have opportunities to practice before the final competition.
7. The finalists’ recipes will be published on the Kikkoman website. All finalists will participate in a mandatory (in-person or virtual) recipe-writing workshop led by a CIA editor, who will assist them in crafting a professional-level recipe.

Submit your concept name and video via the entry form

Grand Prize Winner Details:

The Grand Prize will include travel, hotel accommodations, and meals. The trip includes round-trip airfare to Japan from the closest international airport to the CIA campus that the student resides in unless prior arrangements are made. More information regarding the trip will be released closer to the date of the competition cook-off. Students are advised to apply for a passport at their own cost and reserve time for the grand prize trip which is expected to be in August 2025.

Guidelines:

Demonstrate your innovation, knowledge, and creativity using Kikkoman soy sauce as the central seasoning to create an entrée. The entrée can be targeted to different dining styles from casual to white tablecloth.

• Kikkoman Soy Sauce Choices – MUST Use any of the following in your dish: Regular, Less Sodium, and/or Gluten-Free Tamari Soy Sauce.
• Other Kikkoman Sauces and Products – All sauces and products are encouraged, the judging criteria are based more on a creative and integrated use of Kikkoman® soy sauces and less on the number of Kikkoman sauces and products.
• Please do not use sauces and products from other Asian sauce companies if Kikkoman makes a similar sauce or product. Do not use soy sauce from any other companies.
• Entrees must include chicken, pork, lamb, or beef.
• Entrees must be prepared from start to finish including all preparations in two hours, plus 15 minutes allowed for plating and service.
• 8 finalists will be selected from all entries.
• Please submit entrées only.

Kikkoman Resources

Kikkoman’s Website

Kikkoman Soy Sauce Museum

Kikkoman Student Innovation Challenge 2024