How the Malton-based Tofoo company is cashing in on soaring popularity of meat free food

The Malton-based food manufacturer, the Tofoo Co, announced that its turnover in January 2020 exceeded £1m, which is more than double its turnover in January 2019.

The Tofoo Co. is run by husband and wife team David Knibbs and Lydia Smith; it started as a small, family-run business only four years ago and has since grown rapidly to more than 70 employees. Its products are now sold in major supermarkets including Waitrose, Sainsburys, Tesco and Co-op.

Mr Knibbs, the founder and managing director of The Tofoo Co., said: “Our January turnover coupled with the Nielsen data released in January 2020, paints a very positive and accurate picture of the tofu category.

"Trends suggest that tofu is now being considered as a stand-alone ‘real food’ ingredient, not a fake-meat alternative – a great example of the growing importance of tofu to the overall meat-free category is the top two selling products in the meat-free market in January were both tofu products."

Mr Knibbs said the Tofoo Co's growth is being primarily driven by its best-selling ‘Naked’ product which has seen sales per point of distribution grow by 50 per cent.

In January alone, The Tofoo Co. launched three new products and it has a number of new product launches planned.

Mr Knibbs continued: “Our aim is not to mimic or replace meat - tofu is a valuable addition to meal times and to a multitude of diets, not just those who follow meat-free or vegan lifestyles.

"Eastern diets have contained less meat for thousands of years and tofu has long held an important place in those diets. This is now being seen in modern day UK diets with increasingly more people using our ‘Naked’ tofu to make a host of meat-free meals.

“We strongly believe that the growth and dominance of The Tofoo Co. in the tofu market is testament to the superior product which has better taste and texture due to the traditional Japanese recipe using Nigari; each product is hand-made in small batches and we produce every single pack in Yorkshire.”