Relocation is an issue that sauce makers have to constantly confront.

Doorways of Sauce Sellers (Left to Right: Hei Chun, Hing Lung, Leung Yick, Tai Chun)

Hong Kong's oyster beds at Lau Fau Shan cannot meet demand, says Pang of Yue Yick. Output is too low and prices too high for mass oyster sauce production. As such, the company has moved its main production plant to the mainland, where land, labour and raw materials were and still are all more readily and inexpensively available.

Traditional sauce makers who remain in Hong Kong often have retail outlets in old urban districts.

Click to find out the locations of the sauce makers covered

Redevelopment projects have adversely affected sauce makers' retail operations. Chau, for one, says his business in Kwun Tong will be endangered in the future if the government retrieves its land. Yat Lee in Causeway Bay is litigating against Soundwill Holdings which is trying to auction the site for redevelopment.  Worse still, Hong Kong's Urban Renewal Authority has already rooted out the century-old Lau Shing Woo in Sham Shui Po. Unlike bigger companies, small sauce does not often have enough capital to restart all over again in the same district.

So, when they are gone, it can be for good.

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