Tough tofu biz

At the Soy Deli stand at the Halifax Farmers’ Market, George
Pickford points to a sign taped to the counter: “Notice! Our produce is
still available at Pete’s Frootique in Halifax and Bedford.”

“We just want people to know they can still get our tofu,” he
says.

George’s wife, Anna Anderson, started Acadiana Soy in 1994 and runs
it from her Annapolis Valley farm. With two employees, she does
everything from soaking, grinding and boiling the beans, to separating
the curdled soy milk into blocks and packaging it.

Anderson has sold between 500 and 600 packages of tofu a week to
grocery and health-food stores, and market-goers in Nova Scotia. But as
of September 1, she’s stopped supplying tofu to her five Atlantic
Superstore locations—three in Halifax.

Every year, Anderson’s tofu is inspected by the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency. She says bacteria levels in her tofu vary and this
summer they tested higher than the allowed amount, and her inspector
wanted her to do something about it.

Steven Owen, an industrial technical adviser for the Department of
Food Science and Technology in Halifax, went to Anderson’s farm to
discuss her options. Larger tofu makers pasteurize packaged tofu by
boiling it in water, which kills all the bacteria and extends the
product’s shelf life. The danger is that boiling changes the properties
of the tofu, and smaller shops like Anderson’s don’t want to compromise
freshness.

Anderson tried boiling—and noticed her tofu was more crumbly and
had less flavour. Although the boiled product tested almost completely
bacteria-free and lasted much longer, she had concerns about the
process.

“I just don’t feel right about it,” she says. “I don’t know the
health risks of boiling tofu in plastic.” Anderson says no customer has
ever complained of getting sick and her product has never been
recalled.

“I feel pretty discouraged and helpless,” she says. “I know we have
a safe product. I’m there almost 100 percent overseeing the entire
process.”

Another issue is Anderson’s health. She suffers from chronic
arthritis and the extra day of work to pasteurize the tofu would mean
higher costs for more employees and overhead. “To survive in the food
business,it makes sense,” she says. “But I’m at the end of a career and
with the other factors affecting me, I don’t want to make those
changes.”

Anderson discovered that by lowering her tofu’s three-week shelf
life to 10 days, her product would be in another regulatory category
because bacteria have less time to grow. She’s therefore decided to
reduce her shelf life and plans to tell the stores and restaurants she
wholesales to about the change—and offer a guaranteed sale where she
gives them credit for tofu they don’t sell.

Anderson says the Superstores, where she makes almost half her
sales, are too difficult to deal with. “They don’t have a head office
in Nova Scotia,” she says. “It’s impossible to get a hold of someone
who can do something.”

So she opted to write a letter to all Superstores, chalking the
problem up to pricing and her physical state, and downsized her
operation to 400 packages of tofu. Anderson hopes the tofu business
survives with farmers’ market and local business sales, but has come to
terms with possibly shutting down.

She’d miss the market most, where she sells about 200 packages each
week. “People come up to me and tell me what’s going on in their
lives,” she says. “One man who comes every week told me ‘thanks for
being here.’ I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t sell there.”

This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2008.