The Rural Voice, 2019-05, Page 46Walton-area man and
University of Guelph
student Sean Mitchell is
part of a three-person team looking to
change the landscape of cream-based
liqueur.
Mitchell, alongside fellow students
Timothy Shuh and Mitchell Rice,
won the Project SOY (Soybean
Opportunities for Youth)
undergraduate category for their
soybean-based cream liqueur, 5th
Bean.
Project SOY is an annual contest
that tasks students with developing
new products and marketing
opportunities using soybeans. Earlier
this month, at the annual awards
ceremony, Mitchell was among 27
students from his university’s Guelph
and Ridgetown campuses showing
off 10 soy-based projects.
With the win, the trio received
$2,500 which Mitchell said they plan
in re-investing into their business,
specifically looking at legal advice
for proceeding with the product and
initial capital costs.
Mitchell, in an interview with The
Citizen, explained that he and his
project partners have been working
for the past several months on the
soy cream liqueur.
The three met together at their
supervisor’s suggestion, and soon
realized that, as far as the cream
liqueur field is concerned, there isn’t
a significant amount of lactose-free,
gluten-free offerings like the product
they would eventually produce.
In an early e-mail to The Citizen,
Mitchell explained that 5th Bean is a
unique product because, in its
creation, it uses 72 per cent less
water, half the land and produces 90
per cent fewer greenhouse gas
emissions than traditional bovine
cream liquors.
Mitchell said that, while he and his
project partners wanted to create a
soy-based liqueur, their real goal “is
to create a new market for Ontario
soybeans, reduce waste in the tofu
industry through innovation, source
our materials and create our product
locally, and produce a carbon-neutral
project.”
Each 750-millilitre bottle of 5th
Bean is produced with 28 kilograms
of soybeans, going a long way to
creating that market. Of those 28.4
kilograms, the largest share comes
from the creation of soy milk, where
22.5 kilograms of soybeans produces
278 millilitres of soy milk. The other
5.9 kilograms produces 195
millilitres of 65 per cent ABV tofu
whey alcohol.
The waste from the creation of
tofu, called tofu whey, is a soy-based
project that is really the foundation of
the 5th Bean liqueur, Mitchell said.
The original idea for 5th Bean
came when Mitchell and his cohorts
saw the need for the product, but
were helped along by information
from the University of Singapore,
where a wine is being made from
tofu whey.
“We thought that was cool,” he
said. “However, we didn’t think it
would sell or create the demand we
were looking for.”
Mitchell, Shuh and Rice looked to
the dairy alternative market for
inspiration, knowing that there had
been an influx in innovation and
demand in that sector over the past
several years, and then came up with
the idea to make their product.
The process for creating the
product involves soybeans at nearly
every level, Mitchell said.
Tofu is made from soybeans, which
are ground alongside water, and,
through the addition of other
42 The Rural Voice
People
Soy cream liqueur wins invention award
Sean Mitchell of Walton hopes to create a new market
for Ontario soybeans and reduce tofu waste
Sean Mitchell (right) of Walton along with fellow University of Guelph
students Mitchell Rice (centre) and Timothy Shuh (left) won the Project
SOY (Soybean Opportunities for Youth) for developing a soybean-based
cream liqueur they have named 5th Bean.
• By Denny Scott •