OKYO, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - Soy sauce is such a staple of the Japanese diet that now it's even being put on ice cream.

A Japanese company has made a surprise hit by creating a special blend for ice cream -- said to taste a bit like caramel.

Yamakawa Jozo, established in 1943 and based in the central city of Gifu, said it has sold nearly 6,000 bottles of the soy sauce for ice cream since January, with daily orders picking up to between 70 and 80 a day.

"We didn't expect this product would become so popular as we worried soy sauce and ice cream were too much of a mismatch and people wouldn't accept it," said company president Akio Yamakawa.

The special sauce is brewed more than eight years in wooden barrels blended with sweet rice wine and starch syrup.

"It tastes like caramel when you put a little bit on vanilla ice cream," Yamakawa said.

The 70-millilitre (2.1-ounce) bottle is priced at 350 yen (US$3).