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

Date of Introduction: 1992. November.
Ingredients: Incl. water, soybeans (graines de soja), sugar,
strawberries.
Wt/Vol., Packaging, Price: Four x 60 gm brightly colored
greet pots packed in sleeve.
How Stored: Refrigerated, 24 day shelf life.
New Product–Documentation: Spot in SoyaFoods. 1992.
Autumn. p. 5. “Soya desserts for children.” “Using a cartoon
character the company [located in Brittany, France] is aiming
to appeal to the children’s sector of the market.”
960. Product Name: [Sojasun Dessert with Prune &
Vanilla].
Foreign Name: Sojasun Pruneau à la Vanille.
Manufacturer’s Name: Laiteries Triballat.
Manufacturer’s Address: B.P. 21, 35530 Noyal-sur-
Vilaine, Prov. Brittany, France. Phone: 99 00 51 01.
Date of Introduction: 1992. November.
Ingredients: Incl. water, soybeans (graines de soja), sugar,
strawberries.
Wt/Vol., Packaging, Price: Four x 100 gm plastic tubs
packed in sleeve.
How Stored: Refrigerated, 24 day shelf life.
New Product–Documentation: Spot in SoyaFoods. 1992.
Autumn. p. 5. “Soya desserts for children.” “Soyasun have
also added a new fl avour to their existing range of desserts.”
961. SoyaFoods (ASA, Europe). 1992. Sojasun moves into
China. 3(3):2. Autumn.
• Summary: “The French company Laiterie Triballat is to
build an ultra modern factory producing Sojasun yogurts
in the Mihang district of China... It is anticipated that the
Sojasun factory will employ 120 people and will cover a
5000 square metre site.”
962. Diamond, Florence Barbier. 1992. The life and work of
Holton W. “Rex” Diamond. Part II. Work at Ford Motor Co.
and Delsoy Products Inc., 1942-1946 (Interview). SoyaScan
Notes. Dec. 3. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods
Center. Followed by confi rmation from a brief chronology of
his life and 20 pounds of documents sent by Mrs. Diamond.
• Summary: Continued: In about 1942, through Wayne State
University, Rex Diamond obtained a position in the research
department of the Ford Motor Company, in the synthetic
rubber development department, supervising a project group
on butadiene synthesis. More specifi cally, his work was at
Greenfi eld Village on “dum-dum,” a silencing material for
cars. When the entire synthetic rubber research program at
Ford was abandoned, in about June 1943, he was transferred
to the George Washington Carver Laboratory.
He worked under Robert A. “Bob” Smith (the chief
chemist and his boss) on soybean milk, cheese, ice cream
and tofu, and developed a whipped topping (his fi rst) based
on soymilk. Of these products, the found the whipped
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 357
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topping (which was later commercialized by 3 different
companies) to be by far the most interesting.
Rex continued to work at the Carver Laboratory
throughout World War II–his fi rst research concerned
chlorophyll. On 9 May 1945 Diamond and Smith applied
(as assignors to the Ford Motor Co.) for a U.S. patent (No.
2,476,358) titled “Soluble compound of chlorophyll and
synthesis thereof.” The patent was issued on 19 July 1949.
One day in 1945 a man named Herbert Marshall Taylor
came into the Carver Laboratory with a soybean product
that would whip–but it wasn’t very good and you could not
rely upon it to whip every time or to whip the same way.
Florence is not sure where Mr. Taylor got this product.
[Note: Compare this version of events concerning Mr. Taylor
and soy-based whip topping with that told by Robert A.
Smith in May 1979.] Several days later, Rex analyzed the
product and went to work on developing an improved and
reliable whipped topping. He recorded the results of his work
[starting on 24 March 1945] in his notebooks, which are now
at the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn. Prior to this time,
nobody at the Carver Lab. had done research on a whipped
topping. Rex discovered at some point, while working at the
Carver Lab., that mono- and diglycerides played a critical
role in whip toppings. Taylor was using a typical “bakery
shortening” as a key ingredient in his whipped topping. It
contained mono- and diglycerides, but their amounts were
not carefully controlled, since these levels were not critical
in typical baking applications. Later (on 12 June 1955) in a
paper titled “Vegetable Fat Whips for Bakery and Household
Use,” presented to the Institute for Food Technologists,
he stated: “The use of special vegetable shortening, which
contain not only hydrogenated vegetable oil but also one or
more surface active materials quite common in the topping
business. It is well to remember in this connection that
most of these shortenings are made for some other use, they
may introduce variations in the properties of the topping
emulsions. A shortening containing mono- and diglycerides
may be controlled within tolerances which are adequate for
its use in baked goods but not for its use in toppings.” Rex
felt he had solved Taylor’s problem and made an important
discovery related to non-dairy whipped toppings.
Florence has the impression that Mr. Taylor was a very
outgoing person who inadvertently sometimes got into
trouble; he did not have bad intentions, but was sometimes
misguided. He was a big spender when he had the money;
later he felt he had been cheated by Delsoy Products and
the owners of Delsoy felt they had been cheated by him.
Florence also recalls that Rex, not Bob Smith, did most
of the research and development work on the soy-based
whipped topping at the Carver Lab.
A photo shows the 12-member staff of the Carver
Laboratory in 1945, including Rex Diamond, Clem
Glotzhober, and Florence Barbier. Bob Smith was absent. A
caption notes that here “Diamond did the [sic, his] fi rst work