history of soy yogurt, soy acidophilus milk and other ... - SoyInfo Center

historical relationship is with the produce buyer.
Wildwood is still wrestling with the use of calcium in
tofu, and may start to use it, alone or with nigari. Address:
Wildwood Natural Foods, 135 Bolinas Rd., Fairfax,
California 94930. Phone: 415-459-3919.
859. Lukoskie, Luke. 1990. Recent developments at
Island Spring, Inc. (Interview). SoyaScan Notes. Feb. 17.
Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods Center.
• Summary: Following the split-up with ELCO, Island
Spring endured severe fi nancial hardships. “We’d been
bleeding profusely from October 1987 until June 1988, at
which time we had been able to turn things around. From
that time until now we have been in a holding pattern,
because we were in such serious debt to ELCO that we had
no opportunity for expansion. At the time of the separation
(when ELCO unexpectedly demand total control of Island
Spring, and Luke refused them), ELCO had demanded that
they get all the assets and then Island Spring lease or rent
them back. Island Spring had no choice but to accept their
terms. To do battle with them would have required Island
Spring to declare immediate bankruptcy. So in Oct. 1987
Island Spring began to make $11,000/month payments to
ELCO for rent/lease of equipment and as repayment of loans
that they had made to Island Spring. Each month the amount
of the payment decreases and they will essentially be fi nished
at the end of 1990. Island Spring has retrenched, let go of
all of its marketing and sales people (some of whom earned
$60,000/year), and is running on a skeleton crew. Luke is
doing the tofu curding. “Frankly, I’m having the best time
in this business that I’ve had for 15 years. I’m thoroughly
enjoying being in the plant, working with the crew. There’s
a lot of spirit in there. I’m having fun with the struggle that
historically tofu makers have faced to make a good batch
every time. We have been able to make enough profi t to pay
off ELCO because of two things: (1) The employees have
agreed to forego wage increases; (2). Yvonne, Suni, and I
have worked without wages for 15-16 months.”
Island Spring has been able to keep all its major
distributors in the Pacifi c Northwest. Rock Island in
California dropped Island Spring and took on White Wave.
That did not hurt much because it was a very, very small
percentage of Island Spring’s business, but it did hurt
expansion into the Bay Area. Some Island Spring products
are sold in Los Angeles, an even more important market
that looks secure. Island Spring has lost its ability to
spend money for marketing. But the company has always
consciously set its prices above the competition. This has not
hurt sales and has helped profi ts. Some people prefer to buy
the high priced product, assuming it is the best quality. They
are the premier tofu brand in the Pacifi c Northwest. Island
Spring sales for 1989 were about the same as 1988. One new
product is on the drawing boards: A natural foods TV dinner
(ready to eat, frozen entree, microwaveable), somewhat like
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 316
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
what Legume Inc. did but better tasting. “That is the single
category that distributors say they can move all the product
we can make. We’d start in the natural foods industry and,
as funds are available, expand into supermarkets. This one
entree (not a line), which has been ready for years, may
be on the market by early fall of 1990. The yogurt, and
the tofu in Oscar Meyer sausages are not being actively
pursued, though Luke would like eventually to make tofu in
Eastern Europe for use in sausages there. He has done some
exploratory work in this area. He wonders how much interest
there is in Eastern Europe in natural and vegetarian foods.
Luke no longer has the drive to be a huge company with $50-
100 million a year sales. He is much happier to be a smaller
company with a good life now.
As of Nov. 1989 the law changed making it now
possible to trademark a name before the product is on the
market. This brings U.S. patent and trademark law in accord
with most such foreign laws. However the product must be
launched within a year or two or the trademark is lost.
Luke has heard that a Japanese trading company [Kyoto
Food Corp. USA] is building a $4.5 million tofu plant in
Indiana [Terre Haute].
Luke has a video “of extruding tofu out of a 6-inch
tube–and its just keeps coming. We could feed soybeans
in one end and extrude soybeans out the other. You could
obviously put knives on it and cut it into any shapes you
want. We could sell tofu in a slightly less solid form in large
bulk quantities, even in tank car quantities. But it only makes
sense with large scale production, since it is capital intensive
and requires a highly trained person to run it.”
Update: Dec. 1991. Luke and Suni now have 3 children.
He manages Island Spring, sells real estate for Keywest
Realty part-time, keeps his fi ve rentals running and rented,
services the Island Spring Water Co. customers, keeps
his two cars and an old pick-up truck running, tends the
vegetable garden, sits on the Community Council and two
Island-wide water study committees, spends time with his
family, coaches his daughter Sulu’s 8th grade basketball
team, and spends plenty of time alone in the woods. He is
“addicted to Compuserve.” Address: P.O. Box 747, Vashon,
Washington 98070. Phone: 206-622-6448.
860. Quigley, Brian. 1990. New developments with Bremer
Foods Corp. and soy yogurt in Quebec (Interview). SoyaScan
Notes. Feb. 22. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods
Center.
• Summary: His cultured soy yogurt, which he feels is of
higher quality than any American soy yogurt he has tasted,
will be called Yofrutti. It may also contain Bifi do bacteria
[Bifi dus]. The company is also working on an ice cream
that will be called Bremer’s Natura. A unique dairy law in
Quebec prohibits the sale of any non-dairy yogurt in Quebec,
but does not prohibit manufacture for export. The basis of
all their products is their unique process for making a good-