Known as the “Father of NPUST Soy Sauce”, Food Science professor, Dr. Pao-chuan Hseih has won recognition as one of this year’s Top Ten Agricultural Experts. Over the years, Professor Hsieh, who formerly served as Vice-President of Education at NPUST, has followed a theme of “natural health” in his research, and developed countless stellar products along the way. From seasonings, health foods and functional beverages to cosmetics and cleaning products, Professor Hsieh’s expertise in microbial fermentation has allowed him to get the kind of results that both academics and industry operators are looking for. And for agriculturalists who needed a better way to deal with the imbalances in the production and sales of fruits, onions and other products, Professor Hsieh’s research has provided the value-adding elements they need—making this award well-deserved.
Professor Hsieh has been teaching and researching at NPUST for 41 years now; and over that time he has carried out an impressive number of industry-academia projects with very fruitful results. One of the most famous outcomes of his work is the “NPUST Low Salt Soy Sauce” which is brewed in the style of Japanese thick soy sauce with no added preservatives, potassium salts or caramel coloring. The natural glycolic flavor was well received by consumers and it resulted in a 10 million NTD technology transfer and an annual commission of 1.5 million per year (which has continued for 16 years straight). Each year, over the past 14 years, the soy sauce industry has coopered with the university on other projects worth between 1.6 and 1.8 million NTD with the aim of increasing the added-value of agricultural products (including Hengchun small black beans, guavas, mulberry leaves, and others). Hsieh also developed the NPUST Aromatic ‘Civet’ Coffee using a fermentation technology that isolated bacterial strains from the Indonesian civet gastrointestinal tract. By taking away the need to rely on civet cats for production, the method is animal friendly and gives the coffee industry in Taiwan an opportunity that it never had before.
Over the years, Hsieh’s research has led to the development of papaya enzyme cleansing powder, low salt soy sauce, miso soup, ‘civet’ coffee, guava-mulberry suppliments, vegetable yogurt, fruit pearls, cosmetics products, seasonings and more. From health foods to natural cleaning supplies, between 60 to 70 products have been created through Professor Hsieh’s work—and of these, 10 have already resulted in technologically transfers. The products are also very popular purchases by university employees shopping at the school co-ops, which have benefited from the excellent sale performances.
In addition to his contributions to food science research, Professor Hsieh has shown great concern for the production and marketing activities of farmers. Overabundant fruit harvests create a lot of problems for producers; markets get saturated, prices drop and product doesn’t move. To address these problems, Professor Hsieh set his sights on Taiwan’s 300 billion NTD pearl milk tea market. Using a variety of fruits, including dragon-fruit, bananas and pineapples, Hsieh developed fruit pearls (made of 100% fruit) to substitute the tapioca pearls which are usually used in the teas. The product not only allows for better utilization rates of fruit produce, but also keeps healthy eating in the picture. On another front, in order to help with the digestion of dozens of tons of onions, Hsieh developed more than a mouth full of new onion products. One of these is a soy sauce which combines Hengchun black beans and 100% onion juice (instead of water) in a fermentation processes that was designed to create a unique and flavorful “onion soy sauce”. To answer the question of what to do with the pulp once the juicing is done, Hsieh developed several other products, including a natural and healthy onion mixed noodle, onion brittle, onion curry sauce, onion miso soup, onion crisps, and old-fashioned onion pancakes. In addition to the enjoyable foods he created, he also developed health supplements for diabetics using guava leaves and mulberry leaves. This product, which helps keep blood sugar levels in check even won the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Industry-Academia Cooperation Project Performance Appraisal Committee.
Because of his amazing R&D capacity, Professor Hsieh has been called “the magician of food science” by the teachers and students at the university. He has been a shining star at NPUST and his industry-academia cooperation has added value to agriculture products, improved farmers’ livelihoods, and helped markets absorb greater amounts of their produce. In 2019, Hsieh was awarded the National Award for Contribution to Industry-Academia Cooperation, and this year (‘21), he has been honored with the title of Top Ten Agricultural Experts. These honors are shared by the entire school; and have everyone looking forward to see Professor Hsieh to continue his magic and create many more natural, high-quality products which are healthy and safe and which will be a benefit to consumers and producers alike.
