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

een blind since that moment. After the walk (apparently
because of something Hauser told her), her eyesight returned.
Because of that, Hearst gave Hauser a column on health and
put it in every newspaper he owned. That put Hauser on the
map–and changed his whole life. Gigi has a rich archive
of Hauser documents, photos, and memorabilia. He owns
the rights to it all. Gigi gave Akasha his phone number; he
doesn’t do e-mail. However, in Diet Digest in 1951, in a
letter to his readers, Hauser announces that he is getting a
column in the Hearst newspapers. Akasha has never seen a
Hauser column in a Hearst Newspaper–such as the Herald
Examiner.
At the show she met Patricia Bragg at her booth; she
is tiny but looks very healthy, with fi ne skin. She, too, is
quite wealthy. In 1959 she and Paul Bragg had a blackand-white
TV show titled “Health and Happiness Show” in
Hollywood. Clips from it are on the huge Bragg website.
Gypsy Boots (age 93) was at her booth and Gigi got a fi ne
photo of all of them. Note: Gypsy died on 8 Aug. 2004. Also
at her booth was the founder of the Good Earth chain of
restaurants named William Gaet (see www.goodearth.com).
He founded them in the mid-1970s, and one was in Berkeley.
Eventually the chain was purchased by General Mills.
William, now in his mid-70s, lives in Cabo, Mexico and
looks very healthy; his skin is clear and he has a full head of
hair–a tall, good looking man. He told Akasha the story of
how Colonel Sanders got him (William) into natural foods.
He fi rst worked for Lowrey’s, the big beef restaurant chain,
then he went to work for Kentucky Fried Chicken. There
he learned how to run a restaurant. He told the story of how
Colonel Sanders got him into eating healthy food. After Col.
Sanders sold his chain of restaurants, William walked in to
have a meeting with the Colonel and brought a bucket of the
chicken. Col. Sanders looked at him and said, “Son–Don’t
eat that shit. It’ll kill ya!” Col. Sanders traveled with Shaklee
Vitamins and he was a complete health fanatic. William Gaet
and his daughter are now developing a prototype of a chain
of healthy, fast-food, drive-through restaurants in America–
like Burger King.
At the show White Wave introduced and demoed a
liquid drinkable yogurt named Alive Sweet. She also met a
famous African-American named Isaac Hayes, who starred
in the movie Shaft. He has been into natural foods since the
1970s and is now working to introduce them to other African
Americans.
She sat next to Barry Sears, PhD, on one panel;
afterwards he predicted to her: “I’ll give this low-carb thing a
year.”
Akasha is an admirer of Dr. Andrew Weil.
Efrem Zimbalist II, the son of the famous violinist, has
just purchased Vegetarian Times magazine–for which Akasha
writes a column. She went to a focus group to which he
invited her, but found that most readers want more vegetarian
recipes. Address: Los Angeles, California.
HISTORY OF SOY YOGURT & CULTURED SOYMILK 494
© Copyright Soyinfo Center 2012
1281. Drosihn, Bernd. 2004. Update on soyfoods in Europe.
Part II (Interview). SoyaScan Notes. March 15. Conducted
by William Shurtleff of Soyfoods Center.
• Summary: Soymilk: A major new soymilk maker in Europe
is named Wild (www.wild.de), an old German food company
that specializes in fruits and ingredients; their retail soymilk
is named Soy and Joy. Their most famous brand is Caprisun,
a non-soy drink in a foil pouch, well known in the USA.
They and So Good, the Australian soymilk now made with
Solae, are both strong competitors of Alpro.
Several weeks ago Hain-Celestial of New York
purchased two German soymilk makers, both owned by
Bruno Fischer, Jr.: Natumi and Gut Honneroth. He sold
both companies at a low price–probably because he had to.
Bruno had gotten his soymilk into Aldi, the mother company
of Trader Joe’s and the No. 1 discounter in Germany–and
maybe in all of Europe, and he developed a large soymilk
business with Aldi–perhaps so large he could no longer
handle it himself. Bruno also made a lot of private label
soymilk. With Hain, Bruno found a large German dairy to
make soymilk for Aldi under a new Aldi brand. The new
European CEO of Hain-Celestial is Philippe Woitrin, who
was CEO of Lima Foods when Hain acquired it.
Triballat makes the best soy yogurts (Sojasun brand)
in the world–in Bernd’s opinion. They have a new brand,
Sojadé, which are delicious creamy yogurt drinks–maybe
organic. The Japanese Yakult concept of drinking live
benefi cial probiotic bacteria each morning has now caught
on in a big way in Europe. Yakult is one of the best entries
into the European food market in years. Bernd just saw
White Wave’s Silk Alive [the name was soon changed; sold
commercially only under the name “Silk Live”], a similar
product, at the Anaheim Natural Products Expo. But he
liked the Wildwood smoothie even better, and the WholeSoy
fermented soymilk best of all American products.
In France a small company named Sojami (pronounced
so-zha-MEE), which started about 10 years ago, makes very
creative, unique, and interesting soy cheeses and cultured soy
yogurts. The founder has a university research background
and is a very nice guy.
Tofu: Tofu consumption in Europe has expanded
steadily over the past 5-7 years, but it is still a very small
product. The largest maker of the tofu and tofu products
sold in Germany is Life Food GmbH / Taifun Produkte, run
by Wolfgang Heck and Guenter Klein. Heuschen-Schrouff
B.V. (Landgraaf, Netherlands) and Viana are tied for second
place. About 10 years ago, Heuschen-Schrouff started selling
their tofu under the organic So Fine brand (www.sofi ne.nl).
An Indian-run company in Kerkrade, Netherlands, run by
the brothers Singh (both Sikhs), makes tofu mostly for the
Asian (Indonesian) market. In 2001 Viana started selling its
tofu to the mainstream market under the Veggie Life brand;
this English-language brand name communicates well to