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> I’m also building a team to import and sell these ingredients to western supermarkets Why? American farmers are great at growing soybeans. They even grow v
by Kon-Peki 3y ago
> I’m also building a team to import and sell these ingredients to western supermarkets
Why? American farmers are great at growing soybeans. They even grow varieties that are exported to Asia specifically for making tofu.
There's an old story about when Honda first set up factories in Ohio, they still shipped the engines from Japan. After a while they got tired of returning the containers back empty, and went in search of something they could fill them with. In the end, they hired local farmers to grow specific soybeans that were desired in Japan - every engine crate from then on returned to Japan with those beans inside.
- yorwba 3y agoSomeone still needs to turn those American soybeans into tofu. Either you import the tofu or you import the tofu maker. Just as with those Honda engines, it's easier to start by rerouting some of the output of an existing factory than having to stand up a whole new factory from scratch. It might very well turn out that for most of these regional specialty tofus, there's not enough demand in America to make local production economically viable, but there could still be a niche for a specialized tofu importer that can provide small quantities of many different varieties.
- throwaway2037 3y agoIronically, in Japan, most cheaper tofu (and natto) is made from Canadian soybeans.