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

1080. Garcia Uriarte, Alvaro; Ortega, Alberto. 1996. Recent
history of soyfoods in Cuba. Part III (Interview). SoyaScan
Notes. Jan. 9. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods
Center.
• Summary: Continued: Returning to the Food Industry
Research Institute (FIRI), Alvaro worked with his colleagues
to construct a soymilk pilot plant in the fruit processing
building, where they already had a decanting centrifuge for
separating fruit into its juice and pulp. They left this machine
(the most expensive and important in the soymilk pilot
plant) where it was, and built the pilot plant around it–with a
capacity of 500 liters per hour. To get rid of the beany fl avor,
they added very hot water (above 90ºC) to the mill while
grinding the soybeans, then they ran the hot slurry into a
horizontal chamber where they kept it at 90ºC or hotter for
2 minutes to wholly inactivate the enzymes. At this point
Alvaro drew a diagram of this stage of the process. Soon this
plant was producing good-tasting soymilk. But would the
Cuban people accept it?
Alvaro decided to make the soymilk into soy yogurt
for various reasons: (1) Soy yogurt had acidity, which was
important in enabling the product to be sweetened and
fl avored; (2) Dairy yogurt was popular among the Cuban
people; and (3) FIRI had long experience making it. Dairy
yogurt has become widespread in Cuba since the revolution
thanks to a major Bulgarian aid project in the 1960s
(Bulgarians are considered the “fathers of yogurt”) and the
Cuban government’s view that it was a good way to add
protein to the diet. Dairy yogurt caught on in part because
it is served in work and school cafeterias and snack bars
together with free sugar, and it is sold in lecherías. Per capita
consumption of yogurt soared fi fty-fold, from less than 0.1
kg per year in 1963 to 5 kg in 1980 (p. 112). There are two
basic types of yogurt, and both are cultured / fermented:
Stirred yogurt and set yogurt. Both types had long been made
in Cuba, adding sugar for sweetness, in 29 factories. FIRI
decided to try to develop both types using cultured soymilk
and some of the principles of Bulgarian yogurt technology.
They transported the soymilk made in the fruit building
at FIRI, to the dairy processing building, then worked with
an interdisciplinary team. FIRI has its own culture collection
of food fermentation microorganisms containing a large
variety of strains for cultured dairy products. One of FIRI’s
mandates was to supply these to Cuba’s food industry. They
tested many fermentation bacteria and arrived at several–the
names of which are top secret! One of the bacteria uses the
oligosaccharides (complex sugars) in soybeans as a source
of energy, thereby getting rid of this undesirable cause of
fl atulence in humans. But the researchers ran into two basic
problems: the technology was very expensive, and the
protein yield was very low. Only 50% of the protein in the
soybeans ended up in the soymilk. The quality, however, was
good. So they asked Alfa-Laval for a fi rm price on a soymilk
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 411
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plant that would produce 3-4 tons of soymilk per hour. The
answer? $3 to 4 million. Too much!
Each year from 1990 to 1993 the number of calories and
grams of protein, per capita, in the Cuban diet dropped as the
food problems of the Special Period grew more serious. 1993
was the worst year of all. Malnutrition began to appear, and
teams of health professionals arrived from abroad to study
the problem and try to help. Something had to be done–soon!
Necessity is the mother of invention. In Havana there
was a large dairy products complex named Complejo Lacteo
de la Habana. It used Alfa-Laval equipment and cow’s
milk to make cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, and (most
important) lactose and powdered whey. To produce the
lactose required two centrifuges, that had cost $500,000 new.
At the moment these two machines were standing idle due to
the lack of cow’s milk during the Special Period. So in late
1993, around these centrifuges, MINAL researchers built a
scaled-up pilot plant with a capacity of 5,000 liters per hour
of soymilk–ten times the output of the pilot plant at FIRI.
The fi rst soymilk that came out of the enlarged pilot planted
tasted great. In January 1994 production of stirred soy yogurt
began. It was a drink with the consistency of a milk shake.
By early 1994 some 200,000 kids ages 7-13 in Havana were
receiving 1 liter per week of this soy yogurt from their local
dairy ration stores. The program was a great success. Also in
January 1994, production of Cerelac was discontinued.
While this production was going ahead in Havana, the
researchers continued work at FIRI on making a set soy
yogurt, in part because they had a long tradition of making
set dairy yogurt. But now a major problem arose. There was
only one pair of the expensive Alfa-Laval centrifuges in all
of Cuba. If the country wanted to set up similar soymilk
plants in other provinces, it would have to invest millions of
dollars to buy more centrifuges. This was clearly impossible.
The only alternative was to start all over again, to develop
Cuban technology to meet the challenge. A period of intense
thinking began.
One Sunday morning in early 1994, at his home, a key
idea came to Alvaro. He called Alberto and they worked
together with a sense of urgency to try out the idea in
Alvaro’s kitchen. It worked! Bravo. On Monday at FIRI they
began work immediately on the “new technology” (NT), a
system that did not use centrifuges. This system also worked.
With the yogurt he had produced, Alvaro had already
convinced the Minister of Food Industry of the value of the
new technology, and this minister then became a fervent
supporter of the project.
After they had developed the technology on a laboratory
scale, a period of intensive work began to develop the
prototype equipment, made in FIRI’s workshop with the
participation of researchers, mechanics, electricians, and
electronic specialists. A decisive factor in this step was the
participation of Ing. Carlos Pérez, vice-director of FIRI, in
charge of maintenance. By April 1994 they were ready to