Tofu Central
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By Neil Mulka, Jayplay writer
At first glance, Central Soyfoods looks as bland as its most popular product — tofu.
Today, Central Soyfoods supplies more than 40 area grocery stores and dozens of restaurants with its tofu, producing 1,200 to 2,000 pounds each week. The plant also makes 60 gallons of soymilk and more than 200 pounds of tempeh, a high-protein fermented soybean product found in cake or patty form, which Yello Sub uses in its Tempeh Parmesan and Tempeh Reuban sandwiches.
The freshness of Central Soyfoods' tofu makes it superior to out-of-state companies. Unlike national brands that sit on the shelves for months, tofu made by Central Soyfoods is only a few days old, says Willie Mackie, plant manager. La Parilla, 814 Massachusetts St., orders Central Soyfoods tofu twice a week and uses it in its rice bowls. "Once in a while we have to use prepackaged tofu." Subarna Bhattachan, co-owner of La Parilla, says. "It works just the same but it lacks the fresh flavor."
Just like the squishy, slimy off-white blocks of bean curd it produces, Central Soyfoods, 710 E. 22nd St., is a beige box. It sits on a gravel road in an unremarkable part of East Lawrence, surrounded by strip malls, fast food joints and gas stages. But Central Soyfoods' products are creeping into the food palette of mainstream America.
The popularity of tofu has come along way since the '70s when Cooley was making 30 pound batches in a restaurant kitchen. Grandchildren of Central Soyfoods' first customers are now eating its products.
The origins of Central Soyfoods are humble. Founder and plant production manager Jim Cooley started making tofu in the early '70s as a protein source for him and fellow vegetarian farmers at a communal farm. Cooley's food staple evolved into a business and in 1978 he had two major customers: The Community Mercantile, 901 Iowa St., then in downtown Lawrence, and the Sister Kettle restaurant, which is now Mass Street Music, 1347 Massachusetts St.
Tofu is a healthful and diverse protein source that contains fiber, iron and calcium. It is lower in fat than meat and the Food and Drug Administration recommends 25 grams of soy protein a day as part of a "heart-healthy" diet. In a survey conducted by the American Soybean Association, Americans consumed 121 million pounds of soy products in 2002.
the solidified bean curds sink to the bottom of the bara button on the wooden board by the machinery and the half-barrel closes. The cooker revs to life with a sound like a dishwasher. The beans are boiled three times for sterilization.
Nigari, made of magnesium chloride, is added to the soymilk to solidify the curds. The soymilk creates a frothy, cappuccino-like top as Sexton stirs the soymilk with a giant spatula. From there it goes to the presser.
The slurry then moves into the extractor, where soymilk is filtered from the solids, which are known as okara. The main piece of the extractor is a cylinder that spins hypnotically, filtering out the flaky okara and slurping out the soymilk into 32-gallon barrels. The okara is bagged and sold to local ranchers to feed their livestock.
NEEAR LEFT: Double, double towl and ... Towl
Like a witch from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Jeff Sexton, Lawrence resident, stirs nigari into the soymilk to solidify the bean cums from the whey.
ABOVE LEFT: Jim Coley, Central Soyfoods' founder, pulls out a freshly pressed 60-pound block of tofu to cut into smaller chunks.
FAR LEFT: Heather Muth, Lawrence resident, puts tofu into its package and prepares it for vacuum sealing.
floor from high-pressure hoses that clean up spilled soymilk. The cooking machine hums like thunder and the humidity from the boiling soybeans thickens the room's air. A "no water skiing" sign hangs on a wall.
The atmosphere in Central Soyfoods' production room feels like the first few moments after a storm ends. Splashing sounds come from the inch of water on the
Inside this steamy room, Cooley and Jeff Sexton, Central Soyfoods employee, work to transform the dry soybeans into tofu through an assembly line process. The beans are sucked out of a barrel, into a grinder and then a basin. There, hoses spray the ground beans with the same force as a fire hose, creating a thin mixture known as slurry. The tofu-to-be then meets the cooker, a large, stainless steel half-barrel that looks like something out of a 1950's science fiction movie. Sexton presses
rel, below a layer of neon yellow whey. The curds and whey separate in the barrel like a bottle of Italian dressing. Cooley compresses the curd chunks until a 2 1/2 inch tall, 60-pound tofu block is born. He slices the giant block into one pound cubes and dumps them into a tub of frigid water until they are cool enough to be vacuum-sealed and put into a large walk-in cooler.
SUCKED,
STEAMED,
STRAINED,
SQUISHED
AND
SUCKED
AGAIN
"Our tentacles run deep in Lawrence," Mackie says. The owners of the factory have other business ventures.
David Millstein, Baldwin City resident and one the partner-owners of Central Soyfoods, says his strategy is to keep increasing demand for Central Soyfoods' products and capture the Kansas and Missouri markets. It has been expanding the market for its product in the Kansas City area by adding new restaurant clientele. To keep up-to-date, Central Soyfoods will unveil a new logo next month and it is experimenting with flavored tofu.
Central Soyfoods' employees work there because they believe in what a tofu factory in the heart of beef land represents. "I'm an environmentalist and I am a vegetarian," Tina Browne, Kansas City, Kan., senior
says. "If you're going to get a part-time job you might as well believe in it." Sexton feels the same way. He says this job brings him joy unlike his previous job working construction on military bases.
Employees of Central Soyfoods don't want to be on the front page of the Lawrence Journal-World like another business, Amazing Grains bakery. Mackie says this as he lays down the Feb. 21, 2004, issue of the Lawrence Journal-World. The headline reads "Popular Lawrence bakery makes its last loaf." It refers to the closing of the bakery that shared shelves with Central Soyfoods products.
— Neil Mulka can be reached at nmulka@kansan.com.
3.18.04 Jayplay
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