Scientists give tofu an edge - 27th May 2022

Singapore's establishing itself as a home for the burgeoning sustainable foods sector, with labs cultivating seafood and engineering tropical fruit as a replacement for pork dumplings. Adding to this eco-friendly industry is soy wine 'Sachi', the latest in food waste upcycling.

In a process devised by food scientists working at the National University of Singapore, soy whey from tofu production's transformed into a world first. The alcoholic beverage reuses the wastewater byproduct left over from tofu making. It's been monetised by start-up firm SinFooTech, which released the product to the public last year with a retail price of $28 per half litre bottle.

SinFooTech's business development manager is Felicia Ng.

Felicia Ng: "At SinFooTech we wanted to valorise food waste – to actually upcycle all this unuse, under-utilised liquid waste. So, we turned it into something that is similar to wine, so we call it soya wine."

The raw wastewater's transported to SinFooTech's distillery, where sugar and brewer's yeast are added to aid fermentation, which takes between two and four weeks. The main difficulty posed is the stability of the soy whey, which spoils quickly.

Fauzi Ismail's the plant's operations manager.

Fauzi Ismail: "So basically we have a very short period of time before the liquid itself turn sour and bad. So that is the major limitation we have. So it's advisable to do it between two to three hours before the product go, turn bad."

Current soy wine output levels of between 1,000 and 2,000 litres a month utilise just under one percent of the tofu plant's available wastewater. Plenty of untapped reserves remain, should consumer demand call for expansion.

Food and wine critics invited to sample the new soy wine at Sachi's product launch gave the new tipple generally favourable reviews.

Among them was Spill Magazine writer Dannon Har.

Dannon Har: "I think that if people expect wine from this, it's not what they're going to get. I think it's something that is of its own and people should drink it – they are thinking that way.

"I haven't had much experience with it. I would definitely drink more of it, if that’s – answers the question. But it's still not my first drink of choice for sure."