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Little Soya | Sending Soy Sauce to Space

Consumer & Retail, Digital Marketing, Public Relations
Challenge

Little Soya was the gluten free soy sauce brand owned by Little Products Company, based in Houston, Texas. It was founded by Gary T. Murphy in 2008 when the Caesars Palace Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada requested his company to find a premium soy sauce in a fish-shaped container for its new buffet and room service guests.

The packaging is fish shaped, refillable, and 100% recyclable; and in 2012 earned Little Soya recognition as a SOFI Silver Finalist for Outstanding Innovation in Packaging Design or Function.

Objectives

Pierpont was engaged by Little Soya to promote the unique design and quality soy sauce contained in its individual soy sauce packaging to increase its awareness and customer pool. The team compiled a media strategy and story angle to positively increase brand awareness and news coverage. 

Solution

The new packaging’s small, compact, and adorable fish-shaped design served the primary benefit of being leak proof, even in challenging conditions like lunch boxes or at the bottom of a purse. To highlight the deep functionality and practicality of this new packaging and stand out from legendary, century-old competitive brands, Pierpont worked to generate media attention with the story of sending the soy sauce to space. If anybody needs something to be reliably leak-proof, it’s astronauts on the International Space Station. Additionally, as senses such as taste and smell are said to diminish in space, sending a condiment to space aligned with the brand’s desire to be associated with bringing flavor to every food.

Results

Little Soya was the first gluten-free soy sauce launched into space when the European Space Agency’s Ariane 5 ES rocket departed from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana. The ATV-5 (automated transfer vehicle) was a cargo-carrying spacecraft designed to deliver supplies and equipment to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS). The rocket delivered supplies to the six astronauts and cosmonauts living aboard the ISS. The engagement garnered media attention as well as the attention of decision makers. Lockheed Martin and NASA stated they were creating an entirely new condiment package kit for each astronaut with hot sauce, spices, salt, ketchup, and Little Soya. News outreach facilitated by Pierpont gained media coverage in outlets such as The Houston Chronicle, Specialty Food, and more.