She could have simply got used to the fact that tofu in Switzerland does not taste as good as the tofu in her home country, South Korea. But as far as Jinhee Park was concerned, that was out of the question. “Because what is sold as tofu here bears no resemblance to tofu as I know it,” she explains resolutely. So, she got to work in her kitchen. Soaked soybeans. Churned the water and bean mush through a Swiss passe-vite. Cooked the resulting liquid in a pressure cooker and then processed it with a blender. But she quickly realised that making tofu with the kitchen instruments she had to hand was uphill work.
Today, Jinhee is standing, in white gumboots, with her husband, Thomas Heiber in their tofu manufactory in Kleinhüningen. Surrounded by gleaming chrome steel tubs and tofu squeezing machines. The buttons on the grinding machine are labelled with Korean characters – along with a German translation. For example, beans and filter. Just two years ago, neither of them could ever have imagined that they would end up working in such a professionally equipped manufactory with high-tech Korean equipment. It was at that point that they had to make a decision: either we give up on the whole enterprise now or we throw ourselves into it with all we’ve got. They chose the second option.
“Theoretically, we could double our production.”
High hopes after a gruelling start
“The first two years were no picnic,” says Tom. Willing to take on the risk and full of enthusiasm, he and Jinhee founded Tuyu Tofu, invested all their capital in the venture and quit their old jobs. They kicked off in January 2020. Then two months later disaster struck: lockdown. All the restaurants – most of Tuyu Tofu’s customers – closed their doors. Jinhee and Tom had to turn to local stores selling unpackaged goods, where they could sell their tofu in glass jars. “It was a scary situation,” Tom recalls. “And it cost us a lot of precious time,” Jinhee adds. “But now we are on the right track: We have invested again and built the perfect production site. I have high hopes!”
It was the extremely positive feedback that they got from their customers which stopped them from giving up after the first two catastrophic years. “When someone like Tanja Grandits says there is no better tofu than ours in the whole of Europe, well that’s pretty motivating, of course,” grins Tom. But it is not only Switzerland’s top female chef and her Michelin-starred restaurant who swear by Tuyu’s tofu products. There are many other restaurants in Basel and the surrounding region who also collaborate with Jinhee and Tom now. And you can still buy Tuyu Tofu in a selection of shops in the city.
Wholesome, natural and versatile in the kitchen
The trend towards a more plant-based diet has benefitted the couple. People are looking for high-quality alternatives and additions to animal products. Having said that, the use of tofu and miso is still quite unusual in local cuisine around here. In Korea tofu is eaten with every meal – and sometimes just spooned up pure with a little soja sauce – while in Switzerland people still struggle a bit to come up with ideas on how to use it. Which is why Jinhee regularly publishes simple recipes on the Tuyu Tofu website, to encourage people to try them out themselves. For example, chocolate mousse, and recipes for cakes, but also tofu frittatas, tofu patties and pumpkin-tofu gratin.
When you replace meat products with tofu, you consume far fewer calories and a healthier kind of fat. Tofu is cholesterol-free and rich in calcium, phosphorus, folic acid, magnesium, and iron – which makes it a superfood. It would be good for people living in our area of the globe to eat a bit more of it. And Tuyu Tofu could now deal with an increase in demand. “In theory we could double our production,” says Tom. Tuyu currently processes eight tons of Swiss-grown organic soyabeans to produce about 16 tons of tofu per year. The entire work of manufacturing the tofu, plus cutting, pasteurising, packaging, and delivering it, is all done by Jihnee and Tom with the help of Marlene – Tom’s sister – a perfectly-functioning team.
Friends and partners – in business and marriage
Jinhee manages the production; Tom is responsible for sales and technology. Optimising processes, legal compliance, organising lab tests and building machines – Tom is a trained mechanic, so this is all right up his street. Meanwhile, Jinhee is responsible for the uncompromisingly high quality of the tofu. She is now so experienced that she can immediately smell, see and taste how the soya beans should be treated. Because soya is a natural product, it varies from year to year and harvest to harvest, which means adjustments have to be made periodically in the production to maintain the quality of the product at the same high level. Jinhee is very fastidious and sets extremely high standards for her product. And yet, she announces, not without a touch of pride: “Our tofu now actually tastes just as good as the tofu I am used to in Korea.”
She has been living in Basel with Tom for about ten years now. The two of them met while they were both travelling in 2004. They got married in Jinhee’s home country and then lived in the capital Seoul. Tom went back to school to learn Korean, Jinhee worked for a newspaper and a PR agency. Two years later they decided to move to Tom’s country. And left that Korean tofu behind. “In Korea there are loads of little tofu shops – like the bakeries here,” says Tom. “They start making their tofu at 4 a.m. and then sell it, completely fresh, at the market. The difference in taste to what you can buy here in Switzerland is enormous.” But selling fresh tofu in Switzerland would not be economically viable. Which is why Tuyu developed a method of preservation that ensures that even after a month, the tofu still tastes fresh and has a soft and velvety consistency. There is a world of difference between Tuyu and the hard, industrially produced tofu that is usually on sale in Switzerland. “It’s like comparing an Alpine cheese that has matured for months with slabs of processed cheese,” is how Tom sums it up: “A completely different league.” And thanks to Jinhee’s and Tom’s determination, Basel is now playing in the Champion’s League when it comes to tofu.
