How Niulife trialed a new product and achieved a 98% shop rate on Appetise
“We launched Soy Not Sauce to give people a genuine soy-free option, but the harder job was showing it isn't just for dumplings. Seeing it work inside a butter chicken lasagne and a poke bowl told us more about the product's range than any brief we could have written. And when shoppers put it in the basket, it stays there.”
Rachel GrayOperations Manager, Kokonut Pacific (Niulife)
TLDR
- Niulife made a soy-free alternative sauce built for trial, and wanted to get it in front of shoppers
- They worked with Appetise to spread the product across a diverse range of 118 recipes
- These included unique menu occasions like Butter Chicken Lasagne
- 98% of Niulife products added to a shop stayed in the shop, showing the power of showing up in the right context.
The brand
Niulife makes soy-free coconut amino sauces that are Australian-owned and built on a social mission that channels profit back into village-based businesses through the Niulife Foundation. It's a heartwarming story, but a tough shelf to occupy. In Australian grocery, they're up against soy sauce brands with decades of shopper habits behind them.
In April 2026 they launched Soy Not Sauce, a soy-free alternative built for trial. The real job wasn't getting it stocked, it was getting it used. Niulife's footprint sat at a handful of teriyaki recipes. If shoppers only ever saw it next to dumplings, it would stay a substitute, not a staple.
The approach
We spread the Niulife range across 118 recipes, deliberately away from the dumpling-and-dip occasion: Butter Chicken Lasagne, Hawaiian Teriyaki Chicken Poke Bowls, Caramelised Salmon with Sesame Greens and Brown Rice, Glazed Chicken and Rice Bowls, Nutty Beef Noodles, Chinese Five Spice Pork Stir-Fry with Honey Cashews. 98% of those recipes went on to generate shops.
The results
In the Australian market from March to August 2026:
- 98% of Niulife products added to a shop were kept, not swapped out. Only a handful of substitution events logged across five months, and one of those was a shopper switching in from a mainstream teriyaki sauce.
- 70% conversion on the Organic Extra Thick Coconut Amino Teriyaki Sauce, recipe-to-shop. Soy Not Sauce converted at 45% off the widest exposure in the range.
- Recipe capture held up outside the core occasion: Caramelised Salmon (66%), Hawaiian Teriyaki Poke Bowls (61%), Glazed Chicken and Rice Bowls (37%), and Butter Chicken Lasagne (34% off the largest recipe audience in the set).
The takeaway
A soy-free sauce doesn't earn its place by being a substitute, it earns it by becoming an ingredient. Once Niulife turned up in lasagne, poke bowls and salmon dinners, shoppers stopped treating it as a swap and started treating it as the thing they came for. That's the difference between trial and repertoire, and it's the difference between a sauce that gets tried once and one that gets pushed to the back of the cupboard.
The wrap-up
"We launched Soy Not Sauce to give people a genuine soy-free option, but the harder job was showing it isn't just for dumplings. Seeing it work inside a butter chicken lasagne and a poke bowl told us more about the product's range than any brief we could have written. And when shoppers put it in the basket, it stays there," Rachel Gray, Operations Manager at Kokonut Pacific (Niulife) says.
