Sota, Healthy Vegetable Meat Made of Tofu Dregs by IPB University Students

Processed product innovations for human food needs are needed to be continuously developed in order to achieve food diversity and to solve Indonesia’s food problems such as the high consumption of red meat and processed meat products, which can have adverse effects on health. To overcome these problems, five IPB students, namely Nopa Aris, Fatimah Azzahra, Nurul Aulia, Jundi Jundulloh, and Ade Irma, innovated by producing super vegetable meat from tofu dregs. This innovation included in the Student Creativity Program in Entrepreneurship (PKM-K) entitled “Sota, A Business Innovation of Super Vegetable Meat Based on Texturized Vegetable Waste Protein”, under the supervision of Bambang Riyanto, S.Pi, M.Si.

“The idea came from my family’s job, which mostly works as a tofu maker. I thought about how to increase the value of the side products of the tofu processing industry,” explained Nopa, Leader of the Sota Team.

Production of Sota or super vegetable meat goes through several processes that begin with the collection of basic ingredients such as vegetable waste (tofu), flour, water, and spices. The first stage is to steam tofu dregs for 15 minutes, then drained and cooled for 3-4 hours at a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. After being cooled, tempe yeast was added and then the tofu dregs were incubated and fermented for 5-6 hours.

“Texturized vegetable waste protein is the conversion of protein from tofu dregs into fibrous meat-like products, so Sota vegetable meat can be consumed by people who are on animal protein diets or vegetarian,” said Nopa.

Sota vegetable meat consists of three flavors, namely Sota chicken (red), Sota beef (green), and all variants special Sota heritage spices (golden). Each is sold at a price of Rp. 20,000 per 300 grams in one package. The marketing of this Sota product has also been wide, from direct sales to promotions through social media such as Instagram using @akuanutrindo account.

“Through this product, we hope that the tofu producers in Indonesia can be more prosperous because tofu dregs could be processed into something that is valuable both nutritionally and economically. In addition, this product can also be a piece of knowledge for community with the fact that there are many other protein sources besides meat, one of which is tofu dregs that are often thrown away,” concluded Nopa. (NIN/Ris/zsp)