A new use for soya - 27th May 2022

Singapore's now a centre for new, eco-friendly foods. Seafood is grown in laboratories. Tropical fruit's replacing pork in dumplings. The latest environmentally friendly product is 'Sachi'. It's a soy wine which is made from tofu water.

This wastewater has become the first ever soy alcohol. It was created by food scientists at the National University of Singapore. Then, start-up company SinFooTech began selling it to customers last year. It costs $28 per half litre bottle.

SinFooTech recycles food waste, says manager Felicia Ng.

Felicia Ng: "At SinFooTech we wanted to valorise food waste - to actually upcycle all this unuse, under-utilised liquid waste. So, we turned it into something that is similar to wine, so we call it soya wine."

SinFooTech turns the water into wine with sugar and yeast. After two to four weeks, it's ready. But they have to start quickly because the tofu water isn't good for long, explains Fauzi Ismail.

Fauzi Ismail: "So basically we have a very short period of time before the liquid itself turn sour and bad. So that is the major limitation we have. So it's advisable to do it between two to three hours before the product go, turn bad."

SinFooTech's factory produces 1,000 to 2,000 litres of soy wine a month. But they're only using one percent of the tofu factory's wastewater. They could produce a lot more.

Food and wine experts tasted Sachi. They thought it had its own special taste. Wine writer Dannon Har liked the flavour.

Dannon Har: "I think that if people expect wine from this, it's not what they're going to get. I think it's something that is of its own and people should drink it - they are thinking that way.

"I haven't had much experience with it. I would definitely drink more of it, if that's - answers the question. But it's still not my first drink of choice for sure."