Dave Barsky (Producer), Paul and Mike Rowe

Mike Rowe brought his Dirty Jobs crew with him to the factory to learn about the tofu making process!

He is exactly how you see him on TV: down-to-earth, very funny, inquisitive, easy to talk to and friendly. Basically a guy you’d want to have a drink with.

Because he had been hanging on the side of a building 400 ft. in the air and followed that up with a whole day of jet skiing, he was moving pretty slowly when he finally got to the factory. Lucky for him we would be indoors all day and (compared to his other occupations) I thought we would be one of his easier challenges…I told them I didn’t think we really qualified as a “Dirty Job,” but maybe more like a “messy job” that wears you out. You be the judge!

Please tune in to the Discovery Channel (Standard Cable – Channel 69, Digital Cable – Channel 333) on November 3, 2009 at 9:00 p.m. P.S.T.  Please check your local listings for the accurate time.

Green. If you just look at that word, maybe say it a few times over and over, it starts to seem a little odd…And yet, everyone’s trying to be more “green”.

The closest association we have to being green for most people is the color of our labels, but as a factory, we also believe it’s important to contribute in whatever way possible to becoming more energy efficient.

Over the course of the past few years, we’ve made a concentrated effort to increase our efficiencies, consolidate operations and cut down on costs. We’ve been able to lower our electricity usage by implementing the following programs: re-doing our roof with a reflective white, ceramic coating, installing better skylights to take advantage of natural sunlight during the day, changing over our old lights to more efficient T8′s, installing a 23 kW photovoltaic system on the roof, installing solar fans to help with cooling and installing new motors and control drives in our refrigeration units to improve efficiencies. We also looked at our natural gas costs and adjusted the rate schedule we were on to make the costs more in line with our usage.

Our next big project will be to look at how to improve/recycle/re-use all the water that we use everyday!