Despite massive production, soybean remains a niche food in Brazil

Sao Paulo, Brazil's culinary hub, is experiencing a unique trend with high-end restaurants incorporating soy products, such as tofu and edamame, into their dishes due to their high price and novelty value. This contrasts with the majority of Brazilians, who consume soy in large quantities but not in these forms, often unaware that they are already consuming it in the form of animal feed. Brazil is the world's largest producer of soy, but it is primarily used for animal feed and export, with most of it being genetically modified. The high cost of non-GMO, organic soy for human consumption is due to the complex global legislation surrounding GMO food and the additional costs of parallel farming or imports. Despite these challenges, some Brazilian companies are investing in traditional soy production for human consumption, facing high costs and the need for stringent separation to prevent contamination with GMO soy.

Brazil's foodie hub Sao Paulo may be best known for its prized cuts of grilled meat and lavish sushi spreads, but some upscale restaurants are featuring a novel star ingredient: soy, reported Reuters. The agricultural powerhouse is the world's top producer of soy, shipping over a million tons a week to China on average. But unlike in Asia and other markets where soy is synonymous with cheap everyday protein, Brazilians eat so little of it that it has become a pricey niche offering. On their carefully curated social media pages, high-end chefs prepare tofu cubes decorated with edible flowers and edamame topping sticky rice wrapped in thinly sliced carrots. In Sao Paulo's supermarkets, Brazilians making minimum wage would need to fork over a full day's pay for just 250 grams of tofu. "It's a treat," said Lucinete Magalhaes, after ordering a tofu dish in a restaurant in upscale Jardins. "In Brazil, we're used to eating rice with beans every day - but we don't really view soybeans the ...