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

is defi nitely as good as the German-made product, and now
Granose has added many new soyamilk products to its range,
with vitamin enrichment, etc. However, it seems like the total
soyamilk market in the UK is no longer growing. Continued.
Address: The British Arkady Co. Ltd., Skerton Road, Old
Trafford, Manchester M16 0NJ, England, UK. Phone: 061-
872-7161. Fax: 61-873-8083.
1008. Mahlich, John. 1994. History and development of the
Haldane Foods Group Ltd. Part III (Interview). SoyaScan
Notes. March 8. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods
Center.
• Summary: Continued: Perhaps the key concept that
governed the formation of the Haldane Group was adding
value to soya–even though that policy was never clearly
spelled out. In one sense, each company was acquired, one
by one, without any overarching plan, on its own merits.
Yet all companies in the group (except Saucemasters) make
value-added foods from soya. The Group is fundamentally a
“healthy foods” company that makes only vegetarian foods
(i.e. those which contain no meat, fi sh, or poultry). Most
of the foods are also vegan in that they contain no animal
products.
The Group has bought about 13 companies and each had
its own niche, name and reputation. Each company had its
own brands, each of which had a reputation, and the Group
has tried to keep these and promote them.
The Haldane Group could not have developed without
the very strong health food market in the UK, where there
are more than 2,000 health food retail shops. Equally
important is the strong interest in vegetarian foods in the
UK. When British Arkady bought Direct Foods in 1985,
supermarkets in the UK had no space at all for healthier
foods or vegetarian foods. Now they all have a separate
health food section and that section is steadily growing.
Companies like Birds Eye (owned by Unilever) stand
like a praying mantis and wait until the Haldane Group has
built the market for Vegeburgers to such a size that they
can enter the market with their own vege burger backed
by all of their marketing clout; they will try to push out
competing products and steal your market. “They come
into the supermarkets with their overriding discounts and
they say ‘We’re already selling you £20 million. Put this
product in and then you get another million pounds, plus
you get a preferential discount, etc.” This is a real concern
as the Haldane Group becomes more of a force in the UK
market. Fortunately there are 350 million people in the entire
European Community. Moreover the Haldane Group has a
bright future because they are “extremely inventive” and
they have many loyal customers. They are leaders and other
companies are following.
“Most all of these companies that we bought were
started by devotees of healthier foods or vegetarians.”
They all started small but most did not realize what a big,
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 377
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expensive step it is to get into food processing. So many of
the companies were founded on good ideas but were crippled
because their founders lacked business experience and were
undercapitalized.
The various products sold by the companies in the
Haldane Group are being made in fi ve factories: the Unisoy
factory (soyamilk), the Genice factory (non-dairy yogurts,
ice creams, and margarine), the Haldane factory (which
makes all dry mixes), and the Granose factory (which makes
frozen burgers and many other non-dry products).
The Group now sells a large amount of frozen vegetarian
sausages. If you make a conventional skinless sausage, you
must fi rst make it in the skin, then case harden it, then fi nally
remove the skin. But removing the skin costs you money. So
the Group has gotten a unique machine (they were the fi rst
to get it, but there are now a few others in other companies)
that makes skinless sausages from the start. The machine was
invented by another British company of which John used
to be a director. These skinless sausages have become a big
business and the product is of excellent quality. The Group
plans to introduce this sausage product in new forms, such as
sausage roles in pastry.
The Haldane Group is also doing a lot of private labeling
for supermarket chains. The big food companies in the UK
spend many millions of pounds on advertising, and they can
slip in a vegetarian product under a known brand name. An
example is ADM’s Harvest Burger sold under the Green
Giant label in the USA, which led to a big increase Harvest
Burger sales. The Haldane Group cannot afford to spend
huge sums of money advertising its own brands. So they are
fi nding that it is in their own interest to develop their own
brands but at the same time to go to some of the supermarket
chains and offer to make products under the supermarket’s
brand. This is one way the Haldane Group can fi nd new
growth. Continued. Address: The British Arkady Co. Ltd.,
Skerton Road, Old Trafford, Manchester M16 0NJ, England,
UK. Phone: 061-872-7161. Fax: 61-873-8083.
1009. Product Name: WMR4 (lactose free, all vegetable,
nutritional powder product) and NutriBev (Dry Soy-Based
Milk Alternative).
Manufacturer’s Name: Archer Daniels Midland Co.
Manufacturer’s Address: 4666 Faries Parkway, Box 1470,
Decatur, IL 62525. Phone: 800-637-5850.
Date of Introduction: 1994. March.
Ingredients: WMR4: Corn syrup solids, isolated soy
protein, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sugar, tricalcium
phosphate, maltodextrin, sodium hexametaphosphate,
salt, artifi cial fl avors, mono and diglycerides, sodium
stearoyl lactylate, magnesium sulfate, vitamin C (ascorbic
acid), vitamin A (palmitate), iron (ferric orthophosphate),
vitamin D, zinc oxide, calcium pantothenate, vitamin
B-2 (ribofl avin), niacinamide, vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine
hydrochloride), vitamin B-12, vitamin B-1 (thiamine