Behind the Scenes: House Foods America Corporation - Garden Grove

I've long-known of House Foods as the purveyor of tofu and instant mixes like Japanese curry and Chinese Mabo Tofu Sauce, but I had no idea that its House Foods America Corporation was based in Garden Grove. House Foods Corporation started in Osaka, Japan in 1913. Its first American branch, to mainly sell curry mixes, opened in Los Angeles in 1981; the tofu manufacturing facility opened a few years later.

The tofu-manufacturing branch in Garden Grove opened in 1997. It takes 20 minutes to make a block of tofu here; and 55 million pieces of tofu are made a year! The soybeans used to make the tofu are grown in North America and are not genetically modified.

House Foods America Corporation has three parts: making and selling tofu and tofu-related products, importing House Foods' products, and managing the chain of Curry House restaurants.

House Foods America Corporation recently installed a $1.65 million 213kW photovoltaic solar electric system, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 527,861 pounds per year, or the equivalent of planting 6,139 trees. I was invited to tour the facility by Milena Perez Schmidt and Vladimir Lapin of Dentsu Communications.
And while solar power is good and all, you know I really just wanted to check out how they made the tofu!

Behind the Scenes: Bob's Red Mill - Milwaukie - Oregon

Almost a decade ago when I was home in Oregon for an extended period, I noticed a lot of Bob's Red Mill grains and other products on the grocery store shelves. No wonder since the company is based in Milwaukie, just outside of Portland.


While I liked the whole grains and ground flax seeds and other products, I especially liked the story behind the business. Bob Moore retired in 1978 and moved from Redding, California, where he had operated a small mill in the 1960s, to Oregon City, Oregon. One day while out for a walk, he saw an old mill for sale and decided to buy it. That mill was lost to a fire in 1988, and the business was relocated to Milwaukie where it now occupies a 320,000-square-foot building on 17 acres. The maintenance guys use tricycles to move from one place to another. And all employees get a coffee break at 10 a.m.

Bob's Red Mill now has 400 products, including 50 gluten-free products made in a separate facility so there is no contamination. Last year, 7.5 million pounds of flax were sold.

The mill still uses old-fashioned quartz milling stones to grind grains.

Since Bob's Red Mill was so close by, I had to tour the facilities. Fortunately having a food blogger friend, namely Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok, around was handy since my siblings weren't interested in seeing it at all. Tours are held every Friday at 10 a.m. at the World Headquarters. We mistakenly went to the Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Store, Restaurant, and Bakery (pictured above) first by mistake.

Behind the Scenes: Tillamook Cheese Factory - Tillamook - Oregon

After lunch at Pacific Oyster - Bay City - Oregon, we headed over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. I had briefly mentioned visiting the Tillamook Cheese Factory before, but let's go for a real tour this time.




On that previous visit, my cousins didn't arrive until several hours after we did. So we ended up going twice. Hey, who can pass up free cheese samples! :P

Behind the Scenes: Jamba Juice Headquarters - Emeryville

Finally!

The reason I was flown up to the Bay Area by Jamba Juice was because they were introducing several food items that they wanted to promote via bloggers. So they didn't fly just me in. There were about a dozen of us, although most of them were local. They sent a car to pick me up from cousin Q's older brother's condo along with another blogger who lived nearby.




The California flatbreads that they were rolling out. Holding the sign was none other than Rand, the fabulous brother of Kalyn's Kitchen whom she mentions quite often and who designs the mastheads on her blog. So it was fun to finally place a face to the name.

After everyone arrived, we were introduced to some Jamba Juice executives, given the story of how it all began (in 1990 as a juice bar in San Luis Obispo, Calif. and has now grown to 700+ locations in 30 states and the Bahamas), and watched a promotional clip of a guy in banana costume. The current campaign featured "cubicle picnics" of Jamba Juice's new menu items with posts of breezy beach scenes you could pin to your office wall for your faux picnic. That was all nice, but you, and I, really just want to see the test kitchen, don't we?