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

Africa. In order to realize this potential, the food industry
must develop technologies and end products suites to
the purchasing power and tastes of African consumers.
Those products must be followed up by a strong marketing
program. For the success of such medium- and smallscale
commercial ventures, it is important that linkages
be established between the private investors, NGO’s, and
International Organizations. Address: Food Engineer,
Managing Director, Actimonde, International Business Park,
Batiment Athena, 74160 Archamps, France. Phone: +33
50.31 56.40.
1074. Gordon, Jonathan. 1995. Work with soyfoods in
England and Australia (Interview). SoyaScan Notes. Nov. 16.
Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods Center. [1 ref]
• Summary: Jonathan’s PhD thesis was titled “Improved
lactic fermentation of soymilk for the preparation of soya
bean curd,” a subject closely related to soy yogurt. He
submitted this thesis in 1992 at the University of Strathclyde
[Glasgow, Scotland], working under Brian Wood. When he
was midway through writing his thesis, he won a Monbusho
[Ministry of Education] scholarship to Japan. Just as he was
preparing to go, he and his wife had a baby and he decided
not to go. Prior to that the University of Strathclyde had
applied for a patent on the process he discovered in his
thesis. When he didn’t go to Japan, the university did not
fi nish the patent application process. Its present status is
unclear. He discovered how to do a lactic fermentation of
soymilk that gave a good, low pH in a reasonable period of
time. Brian Wood was an expert in lactic acid fermentations;
he developed a 6-week miso and soy sauce process which
he sold to Nestle. He was very unhappy with the outcome of
this sale, because Nestle shut him out of involvement with
the company. He expected to be actively involved with the
company.
Jonathan’s interest in tofu goes back to the late 1970s.
A native of England, he spent two years (1979-1981) at
Findhorn, a spiritual community in Scotland, where he
fi rst heard of tofu and he helped to make tofu once a week.
Jonathan thinks that Jacques (a French Canadian) started the
tofu operation in Findhorn, before Jonathan arrived. Jacques
and Allen (British) were making tofu in 1979 when Jonathan
was there. Each Thursday after dinner they would take over
the kitchen and make about 30-40 lb of tofu, which was
served in the communal dining room the next day. Jonathan
left Findhorn in March 1981 and arrived in Australia in
about July or August 1981. He traveled in Australia with a
girlfriend (Karen James of California, who had just fi nished
a professorship at UCLA) and they lived together at the
Homeland Foundation in Upper Thora, Bellingen, New
South Wales, where they made tofu with other members
of the community. Karen also made tempeh. Upper Thora
is a little town in the Bellingen (pronounced BEL-ing-un)
valley. Some community members had already been making
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 408
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tofu for a long time before he arrived; the tofu company
was a completely established local business, with customers
and delivery routes, when he arrived. They made about
300 lb/week of tofu and delivered it themselves to nearby
communities in insulated cold boxes (called “Eskis,” short
for Eskimos) in a van. Homeland was also making tempeh
at the time, but Jonathan was not a tempeh maker. He left
Australia in 1982 to return to England.
In 1982 Jonathan became the foreman and tofu maker
for The Regular Tofu Company (RTC) Ltd. in England,
owned by John Holt. Jonathan was not with RTC when
it started. John Holt was a “Premmie,” a disciple of Guru
Maraji, the young guru from India. His tofu shop was located
in a house adjacent to the Premmie community house or
ashram. He converted the small community kitchen (about
14 feet square) into a tofu shop. It had 2 cauldrons and a
grinder. This was John Holt’s private business; it was not a
source of food and income for the Premmie community. John
had a family at the time and he employed Premmies to do
his work. At this time the tofu was made in a caldron. Guru
Maraji came to that part of England many times. Leicester
is one of the “Asian centers” of England; it has the largest
immigrant population of any city in the country and there
were 2 or 3 “Premmie” houses there. Maraji has a large
Indian following, in addition to his Western disciples.
Jonathan also helped John Holt design his new factory
in at Hayhill Industrial Estate (Unit 25, Sileby Rd., Barrow
Upon Soar, Leicestershire LE12 8LD, England). into which
Holt moved in about 1984. John Holt lived in Sileby, the
town adjacent to Barrow Upon Soar.
Note: This company began making tofu in Dec. 1981 at
75 Chandos St., Leicester, LE2 1BU, England. In June 1984
(now located at 16 The Halcroft, Syston, Leicester, England
LE7 8LD) they introduced 4 soy products under the Soyboy
brand. John Holt had venture capital in the business, but they
weren’t getting a suffi cient return on their money so John
had to sell the company to another rather small company
named something like Rainbow (they were making soup and
burger dry mixes), which later sold it to Haldane.
Jonathan probably has John Holt’s home address in
Leicestershire. After Holt sold his business, he bought a
franchise in a restaurant business (something like a pancake
house) in Northampton or Nottingham, England. Jonathan
has heard of Michael Cole of Manchester, but he does
not know whether or not Michael ever worked for John
Holt. Cole won the Entrepreneur Award of something like
£50,000, and that enabled him to build a factory. In the
early days only two companies in England were distributing
semi-nationally–John Holt’s and Michael Cole’s. Address:
Director of Operations, White Wave Inc., Boulder, Colorado.
Phone: 303-443-3917.
1075. Melina, Vesanto; Davis, Brenda; Harrison, Victoria.
1995. Becoming vegetarian: A complete guide to adopting a