Suzuki Japan has started selling boil-in-the-bag curries from its in-house cafeteria, to the public.
The dishes were originally created for its employee cafeteria at company headquarters in Hamamatsu, to give its many Indian employees a little taste of home. Suzuki partnered with Japan restaurant chain Torizen for the vegetarian dishes.
There's a large crossover of Indian and Japanese cultures within the company: it holds a controlling stake in India's Maruti Suzuki, which has over 40% market share in the country.
The curries were introduced last year and have apparently had a big thumbs-up from cafeteria customers, so the company has introduced four flavours for public sale in Japan, each featuring a different Suzuki product on the packaging: the Jimny 4x4, Swift hatch, and the Hayabusa and V-Strom 1050 DE motorcycles. The artwork was created in-house by Suzuki.
The Jimny is a brown chickpea curry with onions, tomatoes and green chillies; it's the spiciest of the four. Swift is a tomato lentil dahl with cumin, turmeric and chilli.
The Hayabusa features daikon radish, carrots and turmeric beans, with tamarind for a slightly sour note. The V-Strom is a green vegetable dish that showcases mung beans and Japanese mustard spinach.
According to The Japan News, the Jimny curry was gifted to guests at the memorial gathering for Osamu Suzuki, the company's former chairman who passed away in December.
If you buy all four curries and stack the packaging end-to-end, you get a composite cartoon-style image to enjoy while you have lunch. Or up to four lunches.
Indian-built Suzuki models sold in New Zealand include the Jimny 5-door and forthcoming Fronx crossover.