Tofu maker Pulmuone Wildwood Inc. is combining operations from Northern California with its under-utilized Fullerton factory.
The move comes less than a year after Pulmuone U.S.A., part of South Korea’s Pulmuone Co., combined Watsonville-based Wildwood Natural Foods to form Pulmuone Wildwood.
Pulmuone acquired a 55% stake in Wildwood in 2004.
“We weren’t even using half of our facility here (in Fullerton),” said John Breen, chief operating officer of Pulmuone Wildwood. “This will make us more efficient.”
Pulmuone, pronounced “pull-moo-one,” is one of the world’s largest tofu makers with yearly revenue of about $1 billion. Farmer Kyung Sun Won started the business on eight acres in South Korea in 1955.
The November acquisition of Wildwood made Pulmuone one of the largest soy-based food makers in the U.S., according to the company.
The U.S. operation did about $30 million in revenue last year.
Facility Updates
The move of operations from Watsonville is set to finish this month, Breen said. The company spent about $1.5 million preparing the Fullerton facility with drains and steel walls to accommodate more production.
Unlike the Watsonville location, the Fullerton facility is big enough to house automated production equipment.
The company’s Fullerton plant takes up 90,000 square feet and holds one of four machines in the world that automate the production of water-packed tofu, Breen said.
Pulmuone owns the Fullerton site and has been operating there since 2003 when it moved from South Gate.
The Pulmuone factory requires only six people to run it. Computers control the production gear.
About a dozen jobs will be added to operations in Fullerton, which also include Pulmuone’s U.S. headquarters. In all, about 60 people work in Fullerton.
Only three or four of the 35 workers in Watsonville plan to move to Fullerton, Breen said.
Soy Market
The market for soy products saw a sharp increase in demand in the 1990s and has continued to show growth, though at a slower pace in recent years. The yearly market for soy is estimated to be more than $4 billion dollars worldwide with $250 million of it in the tofu market, according to a 2005 report from Soyatech Inc.
While the meat-and-potatoes crowd hasn’t adopted tofu as a daily diet item, the clumpy high-protein meat substitute is a staple of Asian diets and receives high marks from the health conscience crowd,giving Pulmuone a bullish outlook.
The slower growth from Pulmuone’s traditional water-packed tofu led it to branch out with other products and buy Wildwood, which began in Marin County in 1980 and has facilities in Iowa and New York.
Wildwood’s soy products are marketed to the mainstream, selling things like soymilk and veggie burgers to upscale groceries such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
The Pulmuone side of the business specializes in water-packed tofu that it sells mainly to Asian groceries throughout the country.
Besides plain white tofu, a commodity, Pulmuone also offers flavors of barbecue, garlic and pineapple.
Other local tofu makers include the U.S. division of Japan’s House Foods Corp., with 128,700 square feet of space in Garden Grove.
Known as House Foods America Corp., its products are marketed mainly to Asians.
It got its start in the U.S. in 1983 when it bought Matsuda Hinode Tofu Co. Matsuda takes credit for selling the first packaged tofu in 1958.
