Soy’s on a Roll, in Cereal and Much More These Days
Doing their grocery shopping, Anne and Steve Browning skipped the dairy case and instead plunked five cartons of soy milk into their cart. “We bought it because we kept hearing about how good it was for you,” said Mrs. Browning. “We don’t buy milk anymore.”
With the government now allowing food labels to tout soy’s ability to lower cholesterol, a new surge of interest is expected, and not just in traditional such soy-based foods as tofu and soy milk.
Consumers can look for soy to start showing up in everything from bread and cereal to soup and salad dressing, industry analysts say.
“Soy is a big food opportunity,” said Carlos Gutierrez, president of the Kellogg Co. Kellogg’s is acquiring the biggest maker of soy-based meat alternatives, Worthington Foods, and announced this week it is developing a soy cereal.
Sales of soy milk, tofu and other soy-based foods are expected to reach $2.14 billion this year, up from $852 million in 1992, and reach $2.6 billion next year, according to Soyatech Inc., which tracks the industry. Soy milk sales alone are growing at close to 40% a year.
U.S. production of soy additives like the flour and concentrates that are mixed into bread and other conventional foods is valued at $1.8 billion this year, triple what it was in 1992, and is expected to hit $3.3 billion by 2002.
Soy “is going to continue to cross over into the mainstream” market, said Peter Golbitz, president of Soyatech. “The historical growth in the industry was without a health claim. The health claim is icing on the cake and will push food companies to add soy proteins to a variety of food products.”
Studies indicate that soy also may have anti-cancer properties and may fight osteoporosis as well as symptoms of menopause, but its ability to lower cholesterol levels is the best documented.
The new food labels are expected to start appearing in grocery stores within days.
To qualify for the label, foods must contain 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving, one-fourth of the 25 grams of soy protein daily that studies have shown is needed to show a significant cholesterol-lowering effect. An ounce is a little more than 25 grams.
Foods most likely to be eligible include soy beverages, tofu, soy-based meat alternatives and baked goods, according to the Food and Drug Administration. A soy burger patty has about 10 grams of soy protein, depending on the manufacturer, and an eight-ounce glass of soy milk about 6.5 grams.
Food makers have traditionally left the soy market to small entrepreneurs, but that’s changing.
Along with Kellogg’s acquisition of Worthington Foods, Dean Foods Co., the nation’s largest milk processor, recently took a minority stake in Boulder, Colo.-based White Wave Inc., a vegetarian food company. White Wave makes Silk, one of the fastest growing brands of soy milk.
Silk, sold in traditional milk cartons and requiring refrigeration, unlike most soy milk, is now in 8,000 conventional supermarkets, compared to 100 a year ago. White Wave officials say they hope to be in 10,000 by New Year’s.
To gain broad acceptance, however, soy drinks and foods such as tofu will have to overcome a reputation as relatively tasteless.
“You definitely have to do something to them. It’s not something you take out for a snack,” said Jane Overslaugh, who was buying soy milk in a Fresh Fields natural-foods supermarket in Arlington. She cooks with tofu and mixes soy milk in smoothies.
