Restaurant Awards 2024: Producer of the Year, Sunrise Soya Foods

Vancouver Magazine’s Producer of the Year for 2024 is… Sunrise Soya Foods

There aren’t too many Producer of the Year winners who have this much seriously local cred. Sure, today they’re the country’s largest manufacturer of a product that many Vancouverites consider a refrigerator staple. But in 1956, they were making micro batches in the back of the family grocery store, serving the small but devoted Chinese community.

In fact, many foodies may not even realize that Sunrise Soya Foods—the tofu brand so pervasive that it practically defines the product—was born on Powell Street, where Sunrise Market still operates. In the almost seven decades this producer has operated, plant-based diets have taken off, Asian cuisine has become synonymous with Vancouver’s food scene and tofu has extra-firmly asserted itself as a mainstay on both restaurant menus (think spiced up in mapo, braised in hot pots, sweetened in vegan cheesecakes) and shoppers’
grocery lists. Soya want to talk about legacy? This is it. sunrise-soya.com

Find more of the best Vancouver restaurants on our list of 2024 Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Award winners.