Pulmuone, left, and CJ, two major grocery labels, are engaged in a smear campaign against each other on their tofu products. |
By Kim Tong-hyung
Tofu is an unlikely source of a tenacious verbal feud between South Korean food giants Pulmuone and CJ Cheiljedang.
CJ, which is the ruuner-up to leading tofu maker Pulmuone, struck first by debuting a television commercial in July that shows film starlet Ko So-young suspicious of the ingredients in rival tofu products.
Ko doesn’t name the products she is complaining about, but the commercial was an unmistakable jab at Pulmuone, which had been using a mixture of vegetable and olive oil to help the bean curds maintain their processed shape in liquid-packed containers.
Now, Pulmuone, which had been carefully protecting its reputation for clean and safe food products in the past few years, is swinging a venomous counter punch. The company issued a press release about its new food-safety campaign aimed at raising awareness about the health concerns linked to tofu made using electrical coagulation. This allegedly problematic method, of course, happens to be used by CJ.
In jellifying soy mixtures into tofu, CJ puts the batches on titanium plates where they are clotted after a jolt of electricity. Pulmuone says it uses a more traditional method, cooling the soy mixtures with salted water, but manages to offer only vague explanations on why CJ’s tofu products could be unsafe to eat.
``The forcible coagulation method based on metal plates and electricity has already been scrapped in countries like Japan, as the corrosion of the plates is always a risk. And since they are injecting the tofu with a high electrical voltage, you also have to think about electromagnetic waves,’’ said a Pulmuone official.
The company denies that there is anything wrong with the way it seals tofu, saying only a dismissible amount of oil is contained in each package, but it has recently started to use only olive oil to massage consumer egos anyway.
CJ defends its method for making tofu, denouncing what it calls a smear campaign by Pulmuone.
``Pulmuone has been deliberately distorting facts and we consider it a knee-jerk reaction to their falling market share,’’ said a CJ spokesman.
``Unlike Pulmuone’s insistence, our method of tofu manufacturing has never been used by Korean companies in the 1970s or 80s, so it’s misleading to say it has been tried and discarded. And it’s ludicrous to question the safety of titanium when it’s widely used for dental treatments.’’
According to market researcher Nielsen, Pulmuone’s share in the tofu market was at 49.7 percent at the end of July, a slight drop from June’s 51.7 percent. The share of CJ rose from 24.3 percent to 26.9 percent over the same period, just when Ko began to ask: ``Why should there be oil in tofu?’’
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[단독] 르노삼성, 본사 모델로 한국 공략
