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

Daller developed the bottle. So the name of the soymilk
was “SoyaCow” and it was sold in seven fl avors–including
maple, chocolate, vanilla, original, chocolate-peanut butter,
and nog (a delicious egg-nog alternative made only at
Christmas). Dusty Cunningham and Lorne Broten were
both patrons of George’s vegetarian restaurant in Saskatoon.
A romance soon developed and they were called the “love
birds.” George was thinking about opening a winery in his
restaurant. Since Lorne was an accountant, George started
working with him on a business plan for the winery in about
1994. George liked Lorne and hired him as his bookkeeper
and accountant for his two businesses–embroidery and
vegetarian restaurant.
Soon, within his restaurant (which consisted of three
buildings in one), George converted his Caps Coffee Bar
into the SoyaCow Health Bar Deli, where he sold at least
fi ve soy products, both as part of the menu and for takeout:
Soymilk (in six fl avors), soy ice cream (many fl avors, always
changing), soy yogurt (several fl avors), tofu, and Soyanaise.
He also carried Yves Veggie Cuisine. He used his car to
deliver some of the soymilk he made to three local stores; he
never delivered his other soy products from the restaurant.
He carried the glass bottles in milk crates. Continued.
Address: Vice-president Operations, International ProSoya
Corp., 312-19292 60th Ave., Surrey (Vancouver), BC, V3S
8E5 Canada. Phone: 604-541-8633.
1182. Conquergood, George. 1999. History of work with
soyfoods and vegetarianism. Part IV. Starting IPC and
mistakes–1997 (Interview). SoyaScan Notes. April 21.
Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods Center.
• Summary: George now feels that his biggest mistake
was relinquishing control of the company during its
formative period. He owned 100% of an idea; he wanted to
commercialize Raj’s process. But he didn’t have the funds
to build the plant in Vancouver and invest in an SC-1000,
let alone an SC-2000. So he brought in Lorne and other
people to take care of the fi nancing. Today he owns 7% of
the company–which today is worth nothing. There are now
400 shareholders in IPC and Raj Gupta is the largest; he now
owns 10% of the company. The company has raise money
both by selling shares and by borrowing. One of the biggest
lenders, who was supposed to convert to shares, never did,
and this became a major problem. They always wanted
the company to wait longer before it went public so shares
they had the right to convert to would be worth more. The
company had the opportunity to go public, it should have
done so, but it never did–which is one reason it no longer
exists.
The people who were now driving the company were
Loren Broten and the board of directors. George was on the
board in the early days but he was asked to get off because
there was too much management on the board. By late 1997
the board increasingly became very focused on what George
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 456
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calls “non-operational issues,” largely “How do we ingratiate
ourselves. When do we get the big hit? When do we go
public? etc.–Instead of focusing on driving and expanding
the business, they were focusing on how to line their
pockets.” The board took control of the company and started
to undermine management. The company was growing very
nicely, and Dusty had left in early 1997 to go to Scotland to
help organize a joint-venture soymilk company there. She
remained on the board (as the token woman on a very male
chauvinist board) the entire time. Dusty (who is a very fi ne
and talented lady) and George were the real disturbers on
the board–because they were the only ones focused on the
business.
The management had made a presentation to the board
that the only way the company could control its own destiny
was to have its own soymilk manufacturing and packaging
plant. IPC’s initial plan was to work with Dairyworld
Foods, which is the big (billion dollar) cow’s milk dairy in
western Canada; their initial plans and plant were based on
having Dairyworld package their soymilk–but no contract
was ever signed. At the last minute Dairyworld refused to
package the soymilk for IPC–because they were involved
in some other negotiations. So IPC found itself with a
soymilk manufacturing plant and no way to package it. IPC
soon found itself spending too much money transporting its
soymilk–shipping it fi rst to a co-packer, then to distribution
centers, and fi nally it to the consumer. Ted Nordquist never
packaged soymilk for IPC; he bought soy base from IPC,
did his own formulation, then packaged and sold it to White
Wave. But IPC’s president kept raising the price until Ted
fi nally stopped buying IPC’s soymilk. So Silk is no longer
made with ProSoya base.
Initially IPC had its soymilk packaged by Beatrice
Foods, which is now Parmalat Canada Beatrice, in Toronto.
Beatrice is now a Parmalat brand. Parmalat, the biggest dairy
in the world, bought Beatrice not long ago for $400 million.
IPC’s board of directors fi nally accepted its
management’s proposal to build its own manufacturing
and packaging plant–now a key to the company becoming
really viable. The plan was to shut down the ProSoya plant
in Ottawa, Ontario, move it out west to British Columbia,
combine the two soymilk extraction plants in new facility,
put in fi ve packaging lines (two aseptic and three ESL gabletop
refrigerated), plus equipment to make soy yogurt and ice
cream–a full soy dairy. They would make all the products
for North America at that one plant until it was operating at
full capacity–which they projected would only take about
three years–and then build a second plant on the east coast of
Canada and ultimately a third plant in the south of the United
States. So in Nov. 1997 IPC bought (with down payment and
mortgage) a 66,000 square foot building in the same town in
British Columbia (a 5-minute drive away from their existing
plant) that had been used for food processing.
IPC had a very tight agreement with Raj Gupta in terms