We can’t believe a year has passed already. We’ve learned a LOT, and we’re so excited for what the future holds!
In the past year, we:
1. Successfully raised over $6,000 to purchase equipment and supplies.
The big purchases were a hydraulic tofu press that can press 24 blocks at a time:
We also got our soymilk maker, affectionately nicknamed R2D2:
We’re lucky that our space starting out already has a kettle (40 gallon capacity) and a great walk-in cooler. We had to pick up some odds and ends, like bins to store finished tofu in, and buckets to soak beans, different buckets to catch fresh soymilk, and cheese cloths for straining.
We’re also very excited to be partnering with John Anderson (the Worm Guy) is able to take our okara, which is our largest “waste” product. Okara can be used for all kinds of products, but as we’re just starting out, we don’t want to spread ourselves too thin. So until we figure out what the Northern Colorado market for okara-based products might be, John’s worms will make the best of what we can’t yet use.
Learning to make tofu from raw materials is an adventure in experimentation, and we’re very lucky that groups like the SoyInfo Center have amassed so many resources for us to learn from. We’re also eternally grateful to Rainbow Restaurant for believing in us from the beginning – they are our first paying customer!
While we’re in the business of saying thank you, we are also so thankful for each and every one of the 125 supporters to our crowdfunding campaign, and to Avogadro’s Number for sharing their space with us so we could figure out what we’re doing!