Tofu sales skyrocket during the pandemic, as consumers search for affordable meat alternatives

[mucifer]

American grocery store shoppers became accustomed to limits on certain household staples during the first half of 2020. The quest for toilet paper, ground beef and hand sanitizer sparked panic buying and supermarket aisle scuffles, while overzealous bread bakers desperately searched for flour and a drop in carbon dioxide supply threatened the soda industry.

But the biggest surprise of this year’s covid-19 public health crisis may be a sudden outpouring of love for tofu.

Since U.S. coronavirus shutdowns began in mid-March, tofu shortages have been reported from Seattle to Washington, D.C., with manufacturers struggling to keep up with demand even as grocery stores rationed sales to customers. Nielsen data shows tofu sales 40 percent higher in the first half of 2020 as compared to last year, while Pulmuone Brands — owner of Nasoya, the nation’s No. 1 tofu brand — was forced to ship an additional 1 million packs from South Korea, the world’s biggest consumer of tofu, to the United States this summer while their American plants caught up with demand.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2020/09/21/tofu-sales-skyrocket-during-the-pandemic-as-consumers-search-for-affordable-meat-alternatives/?utm_source=reddit.com