Mystery Solved
Where has all the soy yogurt gone?
Okay, so I am not crazy. Well, I am, but not when it comes to my conspiracy theories about the sudden and suspicious disappearance of all-soy yogurt from the supermarket shelves.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been trekking from store to store in search of strawberry-flavored soy yogurt. The shelves at my usual haunts —Stop & Shop, Wild by Nature, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s — were all filled in with coconut milk yogurts, as if to deny that the soy yogurt had ever existed. The stock people couldn’t give me any information and would give me that “crazy lady” look when I told them that the only soy yogurt to be found anywhere has dairy in it — what is the point of that? I was convinced that something was up. And they were convinced that I was a little nutty.
But you could sort of see why one might jump to the conclusion that there had been some kind of organic soy bean blight or something. Had my instincts directed me to the WholeSoy and Co. website sooner, I could have saved myself some consternation and possibly even commiserated with the people who “stuffed” the company’s inboxes and comments page with messages.
As it happens, according to WholeSoy’s May 31 blog, the facility where they made and packaged their yogurt “just abruptly closed its doors” with only three days notice! Fortunately, for them, they were already in the process of completing paperwork and testing equipment for a move to a new facility. A process that can usually take several months, took them only eight weeks, they say, but it still caused a yogurt shortage.
Yesterday’s blog post shared the good news that the California-based company’s new facility has not only received its “organic certification,” it also started to produce strawberry and vanilla yogurt over the weekend! Progress for those going through strawberry soy yogurt withdrawal. And yet, the wait won’t be over just yet.
WholeSoy, and yes, the company is cutesy in the way it spells its name, will begin shipping what it’s made so far this week. But, says the company’s website, “With demand so high, and a distribution channel that has been completely empty of WholeSoy for a few weeks, it will take time to completely refill the entire yogurt pipeline from warehouses to store shelves with every flavor.”
Nevertheless, they are on it, running production literally 24-7 for the next several weeks. What commitment! They estimate that we’ll start to see yogurt on our shelves here on the East Coast by late next week. Phew! It’s still a wait, but I feel so much better just knowing, don’t you?
As to the disappearance of the Trader Joe’s brand soy yogurt, all I’ve been told from a store in California is that it has been out of stock since May. I can only presume that, perhaps, they used the same facility that suddenly shut its doors.
Either way, the great soy yogurt shortage is about to come to an end, and all will be right with the world again. And won’t the stock clerks at the stores where I shop be glad about that!
