Marukin Soy Sauce

Marukin Soy Sauce

Marukin Soy Sauce (マルキン醤油) is a soy sauce brewery in Noma, Shodoshima Town, Kagawa Prefecture, where four factory buildings of 1908–1909 are Registered Tangible Cultural Properties. The Marukin Memorial Hall (former soy sauce brewery) and the Marukin Soy Sauce Fermentation Storehouse were registered on December 20, 1996, and the No. 4 and No. 5 Fermentation Storehouses on October 18, 2000 (Agency for Cultural Affairs).

Their registration numbers are 37-0002, 37-0003, 37-0055 and 37-0056. All four are recorded at 1850 Noma-ko, and the registered owner is still Marukin Chuyu Co., Ltd., the name that also appears in the Kagawa Prefectural Board of Education list as of July 14, 2026.

The district name 苗羽 is read Noma. Shodoshima Town calls this quarter of brewing storehouses and soy sauce merchants' houses Hishio no Sato, the "home of fermented seasonings", and notes that many of the storehouses are still in use.

Founding and Changes of Name

According to Morita Co., Ltd., Marukin Soy Sauce began on January 22, 1907, when Kinoshita Chujiro founded Marukin Shoyu Co., Ltd. at what is now its Shodoshima factory. Leading brewers on the island pooled their businesses to form it, and the trademark, the character for gold inside a circle, is said to come from the crest of Kotohiragu Shrine.

The company merged with Chuyu Co., Ltd. in 2000 to become Marukin Chuyu, and was absorbed into Morita Co., Ltd. in 2013. A new Marukin Soy Sauce company was set up in 2017 to carry the brand. The Marukin Soy Sauce factory keeps brewing today as Morita's Shodoshima plant.

Layout and Scale of the Four Buildings

Reading the Agency's descriptions alongside its map coordinates, the Memorial Hall stands at the west of the works, right beside the Marukin-mae bus stop. The Marukin Soy Sauce Fermentation Storehouse lies to its east and turns a long board-clad gable toward the road. The No. 4 storehouse, about 94 metres long, closes the east side of the works, and the No. 5 storehouse runs alongside it to the west.

Building areas are 1083 square metres for the Memorial Hall, 1462 for the Fermentation Storehouse, 952 for No. 4 and 698 for No. 5, and all four are dated 1908–1909. The Memorial Hall is a converted single-storey timber factory with the Marukin mark painted on its gable and clerestory windows above (Agency for Cultural Affairs). The three fermentation storehouses are described on their own pages.

The Natural Brewing Storehouse

Morita says the natural brewing storehouse at Marukin Soy Sauce holds 306 vats of Akita cedar (as of December 2025), and that the moromi mash ferments and matures for about a year with no artificial temperature control, following the seasons.

The company describes this storehouse as a single-storey timber building 95 metres long and records in its history that it was registered in 1996. Official sources do not say which of the four registered buildings it is. The length is close to the 94 metres of the No. 4 storehouse, while the 1996 date and the timber structure match the Fermentation Storehouse.

Visiting

Of the four buildings at Marukin Soy Sauce, the one visitors can enter is the Memorial Hall, open as the Marukin Soy Sauce Museum. It opens at 9:00 a.m. and closes at 4:00 p.m., and in 2026 it stays open until 4:30 p.m. from October 16 through November 30. Admission is 500 yen for junior high school age and above, 250 yen for elementary pupils and free for younger children; groups of 15 or more pay 450 yen and 200 yen (prices revised April 2024, Morita Co., Ltd.).

The museum closes over the New Year and on some irregular days listed on its official page. Groups should book ahead. A hands-on session in which visitors press soy sauce from factory mash through filter cloth runs at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., with no booking needed.

According to the Shodoshima Tourism Association, a timber natural brewing storehouse stands about three minutes' walk from the museum inside the works, with a gallery stage where visitors look down through windows onto the working vats. Brewers are sometimes at work. No official information was found on which storehouses at Marukin Soy Sauce are open or on photography (November 2026).

The Marukin-mae stop on the Olive Bus Sakate Line is right outside. By car it is about 3 minutes from Sakate Port, 20 minutes from Ikeda Port and 30 minutes from Tonosho Port (Morita Co., Ltd.). Enquiries go to the Marukin Soy Sauce Museum, telephone 0879-82-0047.