The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2025–2026
Ajinomoto rewrites recipes around cooking sounds so blind cooks hear when it's done
Japan's biggest recipe platform went audio-first with a blind cook: sizzles and bubbling replace 'golden brown', and blind users cook on their own.
Ajinomoto Co., Inc.
What it had to solve
Ajinomoto runs one of Japan's largest recipe platforms, with more than 12,000 recipes built on visual cues like 'golden brown' — language that excludes visually impaired cooks. The brief was to use that recipe legacy to bring the simple joy of cooking to as many people as possible.
How it works
Ajinomoto runs one of Japan's largest recipe platforms, with more than 12,000 recipes. Almost all of them are written for eyes: 'cook until golden brown', 'until bubbling' — language that tells a sighted cook what to look for and tells a blind cook nothing.
Working with Dentsu Inc., Ajinomoto decided the fix was not a separate 'blind-friendly' corner but a rebuilt, audio-first platform. The insight: food already tells us when it is ready — we just never listened. Sizzling, bubbling and changes in rhythm are precise milestones, as reliable as vision once you learn to hear them.
The redesign was co-created with Miki, a blind content creator and enthusiastic cook. She cooked every dish while sound engineers recorded the real noises on her cue, and the voice guide across the site is in her words and her voice. The team also overhauled the site for screen readers, correcting kanji the software mispronounced and stripping away links, hashtags and videos that made VoiceOver navigation a maze.
Launched in February 2025, the platform drew 23,604 new users with engagement up 120% against the old site. In October 2025 Ajinomoto helped found Japan's first cooking club at a school for the blind, and in June 2026 the project — entered as 'Voice of Food' — won a Bronze Lion in Audio & Radio at Cannes Lions 2026.
Why it lands
- It reframed exclusion as a design bug: the information needed to cook was already in the food's sound, and recipes simply never used it.
- Co-creation was structural rather than decorative — Miki cooked each dish on cue and narrated in her own voice, so the product was built from her expertise.
- Stripping visual-only clutter made the site better for every screen-reader user, showing accessibility as superior design rather than accommodation.
- Ajinomoto used the scale of its own platform to normalise 'cooking by listening' as a skill, not a workaround.
- The results looped back into purpose: new users, higher engagement, a real cooking club for blind students, and international recognition.
What it did
The redesigned platform drew 23,604 new users with engagement up 120% versus the previous recipe site. In October 2025, Japan's first cooking club at a school for the blind was founded with Ajinomoto's support, and the project won a Bronze Lion in Audio & Radio at Cannes Lions 2026.
What you can take
Don't bolt a 'special' version onto a product for an excluded audience — rebuild the core format around the sense that works for everyone; that kind of accessibility upgrades the product for all.
Since then
SOUNDFUL RECIPE launched in February 2025 with a plan to convert 100 recipes in its first months, and grew into a movement: in October 2025 Ajinomoto supported the first cooking club at a school for the blind in Japan, with ambitions to expand to more schools. The Cannes Bronze in 2026 gave the project visibility beyond Japan and turned an accessibility fix into proof that inclusive design can also be better product design.
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