Narrator: Ota is the oldest tofu factory in America.
And at this shop, they're slicing up 3,000 pounds
of it a day.
And that's Jason, a former pro baseball player
who took over Ota three years ago.
Jason learned how to hand-mold tofu
the traditional Japanese way from the original owners.
Jason: It is very cheap to just buy a machine
and just push buttons, and out comes a block of tofu.
But to actually hand-craft it,
it is definitely a lost art.
Narrator: But because of a growing tofu industry
and a spike in soybean prices,
Jason is juggling tradition with demand.
Jason: I put in 11- and 12-hour days, you know,
six days a week. So does my mom.
Narrator: We visited the Portland factory
to see how Jason's turning buckets of beans into this.
Jason: Welcome to Ota Tofu.
I get here at 2:30 in the morning,
Monday through Saturday, to make tofu and start the day.
Narrator: The night before,
workers pull out giant bags of soybeans sourced from Iowa.
Jason: And they're dried soybeans, so they're very hard.
You can hardly break it with a hammer.
When we soak them the night before,
then they become really soft.
Narrator: It takes 10 hours of soaking.
Jason: Depending on the temperature of the outside,
we tend to soak them longer if it's colder or shorter
if it's hotter.
We want that pure white in the soybeans.
These are soaked pretty good.
Narrator: Cooks transfer the soft soybeans
to one of two grinders.
Jason: We grind the soybeans to make really a slush,
and we put it into our cookers,
which cook to about 100 degrees Celsius.
Narrator: Then the mixture flows through a giant pipe
into a filtering bag in the pressing machine.
This machine squeezes out the soy milk.
The milk comes out the other end
and drops into another filter.
Jason: So we double-filter it to get as pure of soy milk
as we can.
OK, this is hot.
Narrator: What's left is a byproduct called okara —
basically the leftover bits from the beans, like the shells.
Jason: So this nylon that catches the rest of the okara,
people will use it in baking recipes and stuff like that,
but also we give it to farmers to feed their cows and pigs.
Narrator: Some of the soy milk gets bottled by hand.
It's sold across Portland.
But the rest gets turned into tofu.
Jason: Our tofu is made out of three ingredients:
soybeans, water, and coagulant.
Narrator: The mixture first gets a splash of coagulant.
Jason: So we use our nigari, traditional Japanese coagulant.
We can adjust the amount of coagulant that we use
to make the firmness that we want.
I will actually make a firm.
So I'm going to add some more coagulant,
because it could be separated from the curds
and the water a little bit more.
It's kind of like making cheese, right.
Narrator: Like in cheese,
the coagulant separates the whey, or liquid,
from the proteins, which clump up into curds.
That takes about 15 minutes.
Jason: So this is what it looks like after it's curded.
So these curds are actually nice and fluffy and soft.
Narrator: That scrambled egg-looking mixture
is spooned into molds.
Jason hand-shapes it using a cheesecloth.
Jason: Now we've just got to press them into the firmness
that we want.
Worker: It's pretty soft,
almost like a waterbed.
Worker: We make medium, firm, and extra-firm,
depending on how much water we squeezed out.
Jason: The curds on the firm and the extra-firm are finer
and harder, so easier to get water out.
The medium's nice and soft.
Narrator: A hydraulic press then helps squeeze out the water.
After it's pressed, Jason carefully flips the tofu
into a giant bath.
He slices it along the lines from the molds.
Tofu headed to restaurants is placed in buckets.
Some of it gets fried into what's called age.
Jason: So he is a master at chopsticks.
That is not easy to do with a flimsy tofu.
Narrator: Blocks bound for stores get fished
from the water and put in boxes.
Jason: From soaked soybeans to the final product,
probably about an hour.
Everything else is really controlled by hand.
Narrator: Although tofu originates from China,
using nigari to coagulate is uniquely Japanese.
Ota's recipe and hand-molding techniques come from Japan
and date back to the founding of the company.
Jason: So Ota Tofu started in 1911.
Narrator: Saizo Ota immigrated to Portland
from Okayama, Japan.
Shortly after, Saizo and his wife, Shina,
opened a tofu shop,
using the same three ingredients Jason uses.
Back then, Ota was one of many tofu factories
serving the Japanese and Chinese American communities
in East Portland.
But then Pearl Harbor happened,
and 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced
into internment camps.
Shina and Saizo were sent to a camp in Idaho.
There, Saizo died a year after arriving.
In the three years of internment,
all Japanese-owned tofu shops were closed.
Many were seized, looted, or sold off.
But the Otas' landlord honored their lease.
And when Shina returned to Portland alone in 1945,
the shop and all its equipment was waiting for her.
Jason: That they came back
and wanted to start the company again
shows a testament to the Ota family for wanting to do that.
And then also the customers that wanted to buy the tofu
and really kept the business alive.
Narrator: Jason bought the business
from Shina's grandson, Ko, and his wife, Eileen, in 2019.
Jason: Because I heard that they were closing,
and I thought it would be such a shame
that a business like this would close their doors,
especially with all their history.
Ko Ota and Eileen Ota really taught me everything
there is to know about making tofu.
This is their equipment.
I inherited all of this.
Narrator: Jason's continued the handmade Ota tradition.
Jason: There's a reason why businesses don't make tofu
the way that we do right now.
Long hours, hard work.
Everything that has to with tofu,
I am involved with the whole entire process.
Producer: You are the tofu genius?
Jason: Yeah, I feel like I am the tofu master now.
Narrator: Because Jason's production process is slower,
it's hard to compete
with big factories mass-manufacturing tofu.
Jason: All they have to do is push a button,
and out comes tofu.
From the soaked beans to packaging
to pressing, everything is very automated.
It is very different than our process.
Really, I mean, that's what we're competing against,
because they're low-cost.
Narrator: And the competition is getting harder
as soybean prices soar.
China is usually one of America's biggest soybean buyers.
But in 2019, tariffs on soybeans cornered China
out of the market.
It helped prices for our soybeans go down,
because the demand wasn't there.
But when tariffs were dropped in 2021,
China reentered the market, scooping up soybeans
and causing prices to skyrocket.
Soybean prices haven't been this high in seven years.
Soybean prices have gone up drastically —
40% in the past couple months.
So I've had to increase pricing.
And I think every tofu manufacturer had to increase pricing.
You just can't eat that much of the cost.
Narrator: But Jason's customers don't seem bothered.
We don't mind to spend more,
because we want high-quality food.
We do business with them for 20 years,
and the customers love it.
We can never change to another brand.
Narrator: To keep up with competition and supply costs,
Jason has made small changes.
First, he redesigned the package.
Then he bought that packaging machine.
He also launched Ota on social media.
And his strategy has worked,
attracting new young restaurant owners like Chef Tai.
He's gotten a lot of buzz for his sandos
made with Ota tofu.
Chef Tai: I'm from Japan.
When I had their tofu, I feel like I was in Japan.
So I'm going to make the miso tofu katsu, which is vegan.
The caption for Instagram, you know, people love it.
Narrator: Jason now sells Ota tofu and soy milk
in over 150 restaurants around Portland.
Jason: We are making about 80% more.
Narrator: And tofu is expected
to keep getting more popular.
In 2020, the global market was worth $746 million,
and it's projected to grow by more than 5%
in the next six years.
Nutritionists say that's because it's rich in protein,
amino acids, and nutrients.
Jason: People are, I think, starting to be aware of that.
Narrator: Jason thinks he has two options
to face the growing demand,
moving to a bigger space or
opening up a factory in other cities.
But his biggest goal?
Making sure tradition isn't sacrificed for innovation.
Jason: I think it is such a huge part here in Portland
and within the community.
It is very exciting to own this business.
But yeah, it is a huge weight on my shoulders.
So good. Producer: Really?
Come on in.