ARCHBOLD WEATHER

The Affair of Archbold and La Choy; How Love Sprouted, Then Cooled Off

~ Flashback To 49 Years Ago ~

(Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, where it was published on Oct. 10, 1972. It was written by William Wong, WSJ staff reporter.)

Archbold, Ohio-It was because of some bean sprouts in Detroit that this northwestern Ohio village came to be designated as “Chinatown U.S.A.”

And it is because of bean sprouts that some villagers are arguing with the company whose presence here inspired the designation.

The villagers and the company aren’t exactly on the outs over the sprouts. They are, rather, having a lover’s quarrel.

The company is La Choy Food Products, a division of Beatrice Foods Co.

La Choy processes and cans Chinese-American food. In doing so, it uses a lot of water– 366 million gallons last year, more than 70% of the village’s total consumption of 507 million gallons.

That, plus general growth in the area, threatens to dry up the village’s current source of water, Brush Creek.

Some villagers think La Choy should reduce its water consumption. Others, including La Choy executives, say the village should seek out a more productive source of water, such as the Tiffin River.

Village officials have asked the state to contribute $2 million toward construction of a reservoir near the Tiffin with a capacity of almost two billion gallons. (The Brush Creek reservoir can hold only 308 million gallons.)

Those who advocate building a Tiffin reservoir, with or without state aid, know that the costly project will mean higher water bills, but they’re for it anyway because that’s progress.

700,000 Pounds a Week

La Choy is so thirsty largely because of the bean sprouts.

It harvests 700,000 pounds of the crunchy white vegetables every week for sale, as well as for use in a variety of food products.

Company officials say that fully half of La Choy’s consumption of water goes toward cultivating bean sprouts, which need constant watering.

The average growing cycle from seed to harvest is six days, and the sprouts are harvested year around at La Choy.

The La Choy plant sits on 27 acres a half-mile west of North Defiance Street, Archbold’s main drag.

The company doesn’t own farmland; its bean sprouts are grown inside the plant in some two dozen 70-foot-long bins about five feet wide and five feet deep.

Mung beans become bean sprouts. All other ingredients in La Choy products are shipped in from other places.

Aside from the water fight, Archbold and La Choy get along fine.

La Choy employs 330 workers. Its property taxes– $175,000 in the last fiscal year– contribute substantially to improvements in Fulton County.

And company officials are active in village affairs.

Furthermore, villagers are tickled by the fact that letters addressed simply “Chinatown U.S.A.” have found their way here, no mean feat for a town whose Chinese population has been precisely zero throughout its 106-year history.

Why “Chinatown U.S.A.”? It started about 50 years ago with those bean sprouts in Detroit.

Grocer And Friend

Wallace Smith, a University of Michigan business graduate in his mid-20s, was running a grocery store in Detroit.

Among his best sellers were the bean sprouts, grown by Chinese residents of Detroit and sold to Mr. Smith through Ilhan New, a Korean who had gone to college with Mr. Smith.

The bean sprouts sold so well in the store that Mr. Smith asked Mr. New to grow them for him.

Mr. New agreed to do so. The bean sprouts continued to sell well, and the two men decided to can them.

Soon business was even better, and the two men formed a company, La Choy.

Nobody recalls how the name La Choy was chosen, but one current official of the company figures that Mr. Smith and Mr. New “coined the name right out of the air, because it does have a Chinese sound to it.”

Coincidentally, perhaps, “choy” translates into vegetable in Chinese.

The company expanded into other Chinese-style foods and sauces.

Mr. Smith was killed by lightning in 1937, shortly before completion of the new La Choy factory in Detroit. His wife took his place as a director.

Along came World War II. The government declared all of La Choy products nonessential, denying the company tin for canning, and then took over the plant for use in making rifle parts.

Now, Mrs. Smith came from Archbold. So did her brother and her father, both of whom by this time were important La Choy stockholders.

The directors decided to move to Archbold and to temporarily enter the tomato-juice canning business (an “essential” industry that qualified for tin) until they could reenter the Chinese food business after the war.

Archbold’s attraction included a relatively cheap labor supply and good soil for growing tomatoes.

Today, La Choy is a highly successful company.

Its executives decline to disclose annual sales figures, but they do say that La Choy and its main competitor, Chun King Corp., share more than 80% of the $130 million domestic market for canned and frozen Chinese food.

Moreover, La Choy spokesmen say the company’s volume has grown 15% a year in the last seven years.

It was in 1958 that the governor of Ohio and the mayor of Archbold designated Archbold as Chinatown U.S.A. for one day in connection with a company celebration.

Since then, the company has used the term in news releases to food editors.

And so it is that the nickname Chinatown U.S.A. has come to Archbold, Ohio, with its 3,100 people, two traffic lights, eight churches, surrounding cornfields, and not a single Chinese.