If you’ve eaten takeaway sushi anytime in the past, say, 40 years, you’ll likely be familiar with the standard method of soy sauce delivery – the soy fish.

Cute, yes. Environmentally friendly? Not so much.

The tiny, fish-shaped bottle has long been a sushi essential, but it’s also a major plastic offender. And now, it’s officially on the way out – at least in South Australia.

From September 1 this year, the soy fish joined a list of banned single-use plastics in the state’s push to protect the environment, alongside juice-box straws, plastic cutlery attached to takeaway packaging, and plastic produce stickers.

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Related story: See ya later, soy fish! South Australia set to ban the sushi staple

But short of carrying around a full bottle of Kikkoman in your bag, how exactly are we meant to get a soy sauce fix for our salmon and avocado roll now?

Enter Sydney design studio Heliograf, who have come up with an innovative (and frankly adorable) solution.

“Holy Carp!” – full points for the name – is the first-ever plastic-free, home-compostable soy fish dropper, and it easily outshines the sad, still-plastic soy sachets many shops have switched to.

 

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Made from renewable sugarcane pulp, the clever design is spill- and leak-resistant for up to 48 hours after filling, meaning it’s both sustainable and functional.

The Heliograf team aren’t new to the soy fish saga, either. In 2020, they created ‘Light Soy’, a lamp made from 75 per cent ocean-bound plastic that helped fund the cleanup of more than 30 tonnes of waste – the equivalent of 30 million soy packets.

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