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

yogurt, and soy ice cream (including novelties on sticks).
Rene has a fl eet of 22 delivery trucks. He sells some of his
products to school districts. Ted spent some time with him.
Rene has a friend–who was a nuclear scientist and
worked in Washington, DC, for 22 years–who decided he
wanted to fi nd a means of “Right Livelihood” in Bolivia. So
Rene helped him to start a company very similar to Rene’s in
Santa Cruz. Then Rene stopped shipping to Santa Cruz.
The third and newest company is ProSoy Santa Fe,
Ltda., a women’s cooperative in Santa Fe, Bolivia; it is
run entirely by indigenous women (who are not of Spanish
descent). Their native language is Quechua, but they all
speak perfect Spanish as well. From Aug. 23 to Sept. 16,
2002 Ted and his wife, Anne-Marie, spent a month working
with this Co-op, sponsored by ACDI-VOCA (an American
company which paid Ted’s travel expenses) and CEDETI (a
Bolivian private development organization funded by many
nonprofi t organizations in several countries incl. Sweden,
Switzerland, and Germany. Many of the workers are
European volunteers). The co-op consists of 20 women who
are very focused in what they are doing. In Bolivia, women
do much of the work and have almost no rights. So they have
decided to take their lives into their own hands. When they
arrived, the co-op was making only soymilk in a building
whose rent was paid by CEDETI. One member makes it
late at night, so that it is ready at 4:00 each morning. They
sold the soymilk hot (an excellent innovation) so they didn’t
have to refrigerate it. They poured it boiling hot into 10 liter,
plastic jugs each with a 2-inch screw cap. When each jug
was full and bulging (with 10.5 liters of soymilk), the rest of
the women took two jugs each and would either bike or walk
or take a motor taxi to a local market. There she would pour
the hot soymilk into containers that each customer would
bring. Each woman also carried special long, slender plastic
bags for customers like taxi or truck drivers that wanted to
buy soymilk but had no container. The woman would pour
her hot soymilk into the plastic bag, insert a straw then a
rubber band around the straw, then wrap a piece of paper
around the neck of the hot bag so that the consumer could
hold it. Each women then took income from sale of her
soymilk back to the cooperative, which divided and managed
it. The woman worked at night to make the soymilk was paid
extra; they took turns at the night shift.
Each day Ted would teach the women how to make new
products, such as soy yogurt, soy ice cream, okara burgers.
Then they all ate the new products for lunch. The women
loved the new products.
While Ted was there, CADETI was fi nishing a new
building for the ProSoy women’s cooperative, made with
indigenous materials. Ted helped to design the building and
fl oor plan, plus a soyplant that would produce–instead of the
present 150 liters/day–about 400 liters/hour. Ted also sent
them a new Corenco (cost $9,000) stainless steel mill–as a
gift. Ted has fi nished writing his end-of-project report. They
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 484
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
are making the new products on a small scale but the new
plant will not be up and running until the mill is installed.
Ted and Anne-Marie plan to return to Bolivia next September
to visit their two “children.”
Ted and Anne-Marie adopted an 11-year-old orphaned
and homeless boy, Armando, who had only one year of
schooling and would hang around the soy co-op. They
invited him to lunches for a month, then found a person
at CADETI who agreed to use money that Ted and Anne-
Marie now send each month to pay for his food, shelter,
and schooling. Address: TAN Industries, Inc., 49 Stevenson
St., Suite 1075, San Francisco, California 94105-2975; 660
Vischer Ct., Sonoma, CA 95476. Phone: 415-495-2870.
1256. Mouton-Bluys, Rene. 2002. Recent developments
at Alimentos Alfa Ltda. in Bolivia (Interview). SoyaScan
Notes. Nov. 22. Conducted by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods
Center.
• Summary: Rene now makes 30,000 kg/day of soy
products: 70% soymilk, 20% soy ice cream, and 10% soy
yogurt. He has fi nally paid off the large loans needed to start
his business, and is making a real profi t for the fi rst time. All
of his products are sold under the Productos Nordland brand.
His soymilk is sold in banana, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla,
and chirimoya / cherimoya fl avors, in 1 liter, ½ liter, and 200
ml plastic pouches.
In 1992 Rene and his father developed three systems for
adapting an existing machine to soymilk in thin plastic tubes.
Previously the machine had been used only for packaging
bolo, an inexpensive refreshment consumed by poor people
in Bolivia. The three are: (1) Reduce the pressure of the
liquid on the place to be sealed; (2) Move a horizontal plate
into place; (3) Heat seal. This machine is inexpensive, but
the three special steps are done by hand and foot, for which
Rene employs 30 women laborers.
Rene recently helped his friend, Mario Bonino, to start
a company named Ideal that makes only soymilk. Location:
Industrial Park PI-29-B, Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Phone: +591
3-553-564or +591 708-15100. Address: Cochabamba,
Bolivia. Phone: +591 (042) 70094.
1257. Product Name: WholeSoy Cultured Soy Drink
(Drinkable Soy Yogurt) [Lemon, Orange].
Manufacturer’s Name: WholeSoy Co.
Manufacturer’s Address: San Francisco, California.
Phone: 415-495-2870.
Date of Introduction: 2002. November.
Ingredients: Peach: Pasteurized and cultured soymilk
(fi ltered water, whole organic soybeans*), organic evaporated
cane juice crystals*, organic peaches*, unmodifi ed tapioca
starch, unmodifi ed corn starch, calcium carbonate, natural
fl avors, lactic acid (from vegetable source), annatto (color),
live yogurt cultures (L. acidophilus, bifi dus, L. bulgaricus,
and S. thermophilus). * = Grown without the use of synthetic