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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (59212)	9/20/2002 2:10:06 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 82486

The tofu's the thing.(Midwest Harvest Fine Soybean Products)(Brief Article) Author/s: Greta Anderson Issue: Oct, 1999 Musings about value added led to a thriving on-farm business in Iowa If all the world's a stage, then Tom Lacina directs a new on-farm business that sometimes seems like a zany hit comedy. He conceived the plot - turning soybeans into tofu - a year ago. His supporting cast are his wife, Alesia, a graphic designer; her sister, Francene Coons, a legal assistant and bookkeeper; and Francene's husband, Dave, an operations manager. The couples, along with Tom and Alesia's sons, Joe, 13, and Jon, 10, live on the Lacina family farm near Grinnell, Iowa. Struck by an inspiration Tom, who works as a lawyer in town, wanted to spend more time at home. He and Alesia had talked about working together, as a family. After attending a farming conference on the concepts of value added and local foods, an idea hit him: he would build a tofu factory on his farm. The notion didn't come from out of the blue. For the past five years, Tom had been growing pesticide-free tofu beans for Japanese markets. His good friend and neighboring farmer, Paul Lang, has experimented with value-added soy products for just about as long, with some success marketing them to wholesale food brokers. Tom was clear-sighted enough to know that not all zany ideas are unsound. It's true, tofu is a sleeper commodity in the Midwest. But with some research, he found that a major natural foods distributor was less than 100 miles away and that the tofu brands in the distributor's catalog came from California and Colorado. It was also encouraging that when Alesia and Francene experimented with homemade tofu, the family actually liked it! Since then, the pieces of the drama have fallen into place. Tom did more research on everything from beans to continuous soy milk extractors, and lined up a state "value added" grant to get started. Alesia designed a clean, eye-catching package for the tofu. The tofu plant was built, including an experimental kitchen, where the newly dubbed "Soy Sisters" develop recipes for tofu-based Midwestern-style fare. (Recipes are printed on the package and at their Internet Web site, mid-westharvest.com A role for everyone Francene's husband, Dave, quit his job to manage the tofu-making operations. Francene took over the books. The family became closer as each found a role that seemed scripted just for him or her. Even the Lacina boys found ways to help with packaging. One year after its conception and thousands of details later, Midwest Harvest Fine Soybean Products has discovered strong demand for its product. The company is gearing up to expand and hire its first employee soon. "We'll be identifying and solving expansion issues in the coming year," says Tom. How it will all turn out is, of course, a mystery, but he knows one thing for certain: "The goal is to stay sane." For Tom and his extended family, the only way to reach that goal is by working hard and having fun.