Great post! As a tofu enthusiast myself this is pretty exciting on a personal level. That being said, you did ask for concerns/criticism, so:
If our goal is to create new foods, the best people to do so are restaurant chefs.
I’m not sure that this is true. Americans are well-known for eating out often, but what’s the actual frequency? I wasn’t able to find a reliable survey with some cursory googling, but from personal experience and what I did see (for instance, this) it seems like getting a majority of meals from eating out is rare. In this case, perhaps it would make more sense to focus on working with amateur cooks to produce recipe blogs and cookbooks? There are a lot more amateur cooks than restaurant chefs out there, and many are quite interested in experimenting with new ingredients/creating new recipes.
The types of food usually produced in a restaurant setting are also pretty different from the ones people would want to cook for themselves; for instance, in the latter case, simplicity/ease of cooking and low cooking times are far more important. So it’s not necessarily true that restaurant chefs developing new dishes would easily translate to a greater variety of dishes people would be able to cook in their own kitchens. If people prepare most meals at home, it seems like it might be more impactful to focus efforts in that area.
From a first principles perspective, given rates of flexitarianism and the fact that tofu is by far the most culinarily-versatile of global plant-based proteins, consumption could easily be 4-10x higher.
You justify this by saying that there are some foods Americans eat quite often, but all of those foods are ones easily prepared in meals at home. It seems reasonable to presume that the invention of new and tasty tofu dishes will incentivize people to eat them when they eat out, but it’s pretty doubtful that the frequency with which people eat out will significantly increase.
Do you know of potentially allies I should reach out to? I would really appreciate any warm intros.
I am part of a vegan/vegetarian club at my university, and we keep in touch with various local plant-based food businesses; many of them have track records of creating innovative new dishes, and would likely be happy to experiment with rare tofus. These are generally small-scale operations, so I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for, but if you’re interested in collaborating with them I can reach out. My club would also likely be willing to promote the project on social media (and, more generally, perhaps recruiting student groups with an interest in plant-based foods could be valuable to your social media campaign).
I wasn’t able to find a reliable survey with some cursory googling, but from personal experience and what I did see (for instance, this) it seems like getting a majority of meals from eating out is rare.
You’re definitely right here. Food expenditures at and away from home are pretty split, but given that the cost of eating out is higher, people eat more meals at home. The reason I think it might make sense to focus first on food service is less about end strategy and more about the sequence. Since chefs can better control UX, restaurantgoers are more likely to be impressed by rare tofus than folks cooking it for themselves. First impressions seem really important here. Besides taste, it’s also easier to get products into food service distribution channels than retail. That said, once we have better home cook-friendly use cases for these ingredients, and sufficient consumer demand, growth would come from retail.
So it’s not necessarily true that restaurant chefs developing new dishes would easily translate to a greater variety of dishes people would be able to cook in their own kitchens.
My intuition is that this would translate—if a few chefs could make rare tofus “sexy”, then that would have ripple effects, leading other chefs and food bloggers to also experiment. It seems harder to make ingredients sexy from the blogger side, without the ingredient devolving into a fad. I could be wrong, though.
I am part of a vegan/vegetarian club at my university, and we keep in touch with various local plant-based food businesses; many of them have track records of creating innovative new dishes, and would likely be happy to experiment with rare tofus. These are generally small-scale operations, so I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for, but if you’re interested in collaborating with them I can reach out. My club would also likely be willing to promote the project on social media (and, more generally, perhaps recruiting student groups with an interest in plant-based foods could be valuable to your social media campaign).
Thank you for offering! I’d love to connect. I’ll shoot you a Forum message :)
Great post! As a tofu enthusiast myself this is pretty exciting on a personal level. That being said, you did ask for concerns/criticism, so:
I’m not sure that this is true. Americans are well-known for eating out often, but what’s the actual frequency? I wasn’t able to find a reliable survey with some cursory googling, but from personal experience and what I did see (for instance, this) it seems like getting a majority of meals from eating out is rare. In this case, perhaps it would make more sense to focus on working with amateur cooks to produce recipe blogs and cookbooks? There are a lot more amateur cooks than restaurant chefs out there, and many are quite interested in experimenting with new ingredients/creating new recipes.
The types of food usually produced in a restaurant setting are also pretty different from the ones people would want to cook for themselves; for instance, in the latter case, simplicity/ease of cooking and low cooking times are far more important. So it’s not necessarily true that restaurant chefs developing new dishes would easily translate to a greater variety of dishes people would be able to cook in their own kitchens. If people prepare most meals at home, it seems like it might be more impactful to focus efforts in that area.
You justify this by saying that there are some foods Americans eat quite often, but all of those foods are ones easily prepared in meals at home. It seems reasonable to presume that the invention of new and tasty tofu dishes will incentivize people to eat them when they eat out, but it’s pretty doubtful that the frequency with which people eat out will significantly increase.
I am part of a vegan/vegetarian club at my university, and we keep in touch with various local plant-based food businesses; many of them have track records of creating innovative new dishes, and would likely be happy to experiment with rare tofus. These are generally small-scale operations, so I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for, but if you’re interested in collaborating with them I can reach out. My club would also likely be willing to promote the project on social media (and, more generally, perhaps recruiting student groups with an interest in plant-based foods could be valuable to your social media campaign).
Thanks for all your pointers!
You’re definitely right here. Food expenditures at and away from home are pretty split, but given that the cost of eating out is higher, people eat more meals at home. The reason I think it might make sense to focus first on food service is less about end strategy and more about the sequence. Since chefs can better control UX, restaurantgoers are more likely to be impressed by rare tofus than folks cooking it for themselves. First impressions seem really important here. Besides taste, it’s also easier to get products into food service distribution channels than retail. That said, once we have better home cook-friendly use cases for these ingredients, and sufficient consumer demand, growth would come from retail.
My intuition is that this would translate—if a few chefs could make rare tofus “sexy”, then that would have ripple effects, leading other chefs and food bloggers to also experiment. It seems harder to make ingredients sexy from the blogger side, without the ingredient devolving into a fad. I could be wrong, though.
Thank you for offering! I’d love to connect. I’ll shoot you a Forum message :)