World's first soy sauce 'lighthouse factory' in Foshan leverages AI to upgrade brewing

In a factory in Foshan city, Guangdong province, more than 2.5 trillion soybeans are being selected annually via an artificial intelligence bean face recognition system in its workshops.

Huang Shuliang, chief digital intelligence engineer of Haitian Flavoring and Food Co Ltd, said the AI bean face recognition technology ensures that only good quality soybeans are used to produce soy sauce, further ensuring the quality of products.

Meanwhile, the AI electronic nose has now realized the digital inheritance of veteran artisans' sensory experience by establishing an aroma metabolomics spectral library, Huang said.

"Previously, soybean screening relied on manual labor and machines, but now we have adopted AI intelligent soybean sorting," Huang said, adding that each soybean is photographed by AI to screen out those with ideal color, size and shape.

By utilizing intelligent technologies such as AI bean selection analysis and AI electronic noses, Haitian has made great progress in advancing digital and intelligent transformation in recent years, greatly improving the quality of soy sauce and promoting Chinese flavors globally, he said.

Thanks to the advanced AI technologies and equipment being used in the production of soy sauce and the high quality of its products, the Gaoming factory, a subsidiary of the 400-year-old brand Haitian, was added to the global "lighthouse factory" network by the World Economic Forum in January, 2025.

Huang said Haitian's production output and sales has witnessed a year-on-year growth of 30 percent after it has been added to the lighthouse factory network last year.

A "lighthouse factory" is recognized as being one of the "most advanced factories in the world", representing the forefront level of global manufacturing intelligence and digitization.

It is the first soy sauce brewing factory to be listed as a "lighthouse factory" in the world so far.

Located in Gaoming district of Foshan, the factory, which covers more than 2 million square meters, is the world's largest seasoning production base.

The factory, which produces over 50 billion bottles of soy sauce annually, reaches an annual production of more than 4 million metric tons of different kinds of seasonings.