Household Ingredients Compared  ›  Tofu and Tempeh (Singapore)

Tofu and tempeh: what's actually in it?

Tofu is soy milk curdled with a coagulant and pressed into a block; tempeh is whole soybeans (or other beans) fermented with a Rhizopus culture into a firm cake. The two are often shelved together, but they are different foods with different lists: a plain tofu list is usually soybeans or soy milk, water and one or two coagulants, while a tempeh list is beans, water and culture. The coagulant is the main thing that changes between tofu brands — calcium sulfate (E516, gypsum), glucono-delta-lactone (E575, GDL), calcium chloride (E509) and nigari (magnesium chloride, E511) — and it is printed on the list, so it can be compared directly.

This page covers all tofu sold in Singapore — silken, firm, extra firm, egg tofu, pressed/fried tofu and flavoured tofu — and tempeh, fresh/chilled and shelf-stable. Fish-paste "seafood tofu", "cheese tofu" and similar steamboat items are not soy tofu and are excluded from the panels (see the scope note below); fried tau pok, tau kee, fermented tofu (fuyu) and douhua/tau huay are also out of this page's scope and are listed as gaps, not panelled.

This page does not give a health score or a "best" pick.

The headline, in 30 seconds

• Singapore's tofu shelf is dominated by two local makers, Fortune and Unicurd. Fortune is described by its parent PSC Corporation as Singapore's No. 1 tofu brand (NIQ ScanTrack, modern trade, MAT to March 2025); Unicurd is the other Singapore-made range, sold at FairPrice and through foodservice. Both are made in Singapore from non-GMO soybeans.
• The shortest plain-tofu lists are three items. Unicurd Silken Tofu (FairPrice ingredient section) lists only non-GMO soybeans, calcium sulfate (E516) and glucono-delta-lactone — no water is listed on that FairPrice entry.
• Silken tofu is not one recipe. Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu (Open Food Facts Singapore) lists soy milk, starch, GDL, tricalcium phosphate, emulsifier, plant stabiliser and calcium sulfate — a longer list than Unicurd's silken, with starch and an emulsifier Unicurd does not list.
• Tau kwa lists disagree between sources — do not merge them. Fortune Traditional Tau Kwa on Amazon Singapore lists non-GMO soy milk, salt, calcium sulfate (E516) and calcium chloride (E509), with no water and no GDL; the vacuum-packed Fortune Tau Kwa on Open Food Facts Singapore is transcribed (in German) as soya, water, acidity regulator (E575) and stabiliser (E516), with no salt and no calcium chloride. They may be different packs or formulations, or one transcription may be incomplete. Both are panelled separately, flagged, and neither is presented as the settled SG pack list — a pack photo is needed to reconcile them.
• Pressed tofu adds starch. Both Unicurd Pressed Tofu (foodservice specification) and Fortune Pressed Tofu (EU importer transcription) list modified/tapioca starch alongside the coagulants — the pressing and the starch are what make it hold its shape for frying.
• Tempeh lists are the shortest on the page. Biona Organic Tempeh is soya beans (80%), water and Rhizopus culture; Angie's Chickpea Tempeh is organic chickpeas, culture (Rhizopus oligosporus) and filtered water. No coagulant, no starch, no salt.
• Egg tofu is the one tofu that is not vegan. No full verbatim SG list for any Fortune egg tofu was retrievable in this pass, so no egg tofu is panelled — but the category is real and large (Fortune Egg Tofu, Egg Tofu with Omega 3, Extra Smooth Silken Egg Tofu tube, Egg White Tofu), and it is the biggest single gap on this page. Do not assume an egg tofu shares a plain tofu list: it contains egg.
• Nigari (magnesium chloride) barely appears on the Singapore shelf in this pass. It is the traditional Japanese coagulant and it is on Mori-Nu's nigari lines, but no Mori-Nu SG retail listing with a verbatim list was retrieved, so Mori-Nu is seen-but-not-verified, not panelled. On the panelled SG products, calcium sulfate and GDL dominate.

At a glance

Panelled with verbatim lists: 11 products (8 tofu, 3 tempeh). Seen-but-not-verified: see the list below. No shelf-stable Mori-Nu tofu is panelled — its SG retail listing was not retrieved in this pass, although the brand's lists are quoted in the research notes for reference.

Prices are deliberately not shown here: they change weekly and would go stale. This site compares ingredients only.

Silken tofu

Firm tofu — tau kwa

Pressed tofu

Other tofu — bai ye

Tempeh

FairPrice — the beancurd and tofu shelf (inventory, 5–6 Nov 2026)

FairPrice's beancurd & tofu category is the fullest SG shelf inventoried in this pass. Its top picks name Fortune Tofu 300g, Fortune Silken Tofu Japanese Style 300g, Fortune Egg Tofu with Omega 3 150g and Fortune Silken Tofu Japanese with Omega 3 300g, plus LG Small Taukwa 1kg. Its chilled-food listings also show: Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu – Omega 3 DHA 300g, Fortune Silken Egg Tofu – Extra Smooth with Omega 3 (Tube) 150g, Fortune Tau Kwa – Original, Fortune Tau Kwa – Original with Omega 3, Fortune Silken Tofu – Extra Smooth (Box), Fortune Chinese Tofu – Omega 3 DHA, Fortune Chinese Tofu – Traditional, Peng Wang Cheese Tofu, BoBo Fried Tau Kee and BoBo Seafood Tofu – Cheese. FairPrice publishes an ingredient section for some products (Unicurd Silken Tofu) and none for others (Biona Organic Tempeh) — the products above that could not be panelled from a retrieved list are in seen-but-not-verified below. LG Foods is a separate FairPrice brand on the same shelf: Fresh Taukwa 280g, Small Taukwa, Medium Taukwa, Pressed Tofu 300g, Silken Tofu 300g, Egg Tofu 130g and Golden Tofu 300g — all inventoried, none with a retrieved ingredient list.

Cold Storage, Giant, Sheng Siong, Don Don Donki, Mustafa, Meidi-Ya, Le Petit Depot, Little Farms, RedMart, Lazada, Shopee Singapore — what was checked

Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page (established on the orange-juice page and the same here), so its tofu/tempeh shelf can be inventoried but not panelled from its site. No Cold Storage tofu/tempeh product page with a verbatim list was retrieved in this pass. Giant, Sheng Siong, Don Don Donki, Mustafa, Meidi-Ya, Le Petit Depot, Little Farms and RedMart: no tofu- or tempeh-specific category listing with a verbatim ingredient list was retrieved in this pass — their shelves are a known gap, not a finding of absence. Japanese silken tofu at Donki/Meidi-Ya/Le Petit Depot (including Mori-Nu shelf-stable boxes, whose SG sale was not verified in this pass) is the most likely missed shelf and needs an in-store check. Lazada and Shopee Singapore: Fortune and other tofu/tempeh listings exist as reseller listings, but no reseller short description was treated as a verbatim list; Amazon Singapore was the one marketplace channel that yielded a full list (Fortune Traditional Tau Kwa). Specialty/import channels: Angie's Tempeh (SG maker, direct/online) and Biona (FairPrice import) are covered above; other local tempeh makers and health-food stockists (Nature's Superfoods, Scoop Wholefoods, Ryan's Grocery, SuperNature and similar) were not inventoried with verified lists in this pass.

Seen but not verified — do not panel until checked

• Fortune egg tofu range (the biggest gap): Fortune Egg Tofu 150g, Egg Tofu with Omega 3 150g, Extra Smooth Silken Egg Tofu 150g (tube), Silken Egg Tofu – Extra Smooth with Omega 3 (Tube) 150g, Egg White Tofu 140g (described by Fortune as Singapore's first egg-white tofu, introduced 2023, made using egg whites only), and Tamago Tofu Mushi 300g (ready-to-eat chawanmushi). No full verbatim SG list retrieved for any of them. Egg tofu contains egg — do not assume it shares a plain tofu list.
• Fortune other variants: Extra Smooth Silken Tofu 300g (box), Traditional Chinese Tofu 300g, Chinese Tofu – Traditional, Chinese Tofu with Omega 3 DHA 300g (Open Food Facts lists a partial list — soy milk, tapioca starch, GDL (E575), DHA (plant origin), tricalcium phosphate [E341(iii)], calcium sulfate (E516), vitamin C, vitamin … — truncated mid-list, so it cannot be panelled as complete), Japanese Silken Tofu with Omega 3 DHA 300g, Silken Tofu – Japanese with Omega 3, Tau Kwa – Original with Omega 3, Deep-Fried Tau Kwa (launched 2022 per PSC), Tau Kwa – Original (FairPrice listing, no list retrieved).
• Unicurd other variants: Japanese Silken Tofu 300g (Longdan lists water, non-GMO soybeans, stabiliser E516, acidity regulator E575 — the same pattern as its Silken Tofu 250g; not panelled separately because it may be the same product as the panelled Silken Tofu under a different pack, and the FairPrice list differs), Yakko Tofu Soft 300g (Japanese soft tofu, no list retrieved), Springy Silken Tofu, Silken Tofu Red Box 300g, Tau Kwa Firm Tofu (Red) 220g (UK retailer list — water, soybeans, stabilisers E509 & E516, salt — differs from the panelled OFF SG 400g list), Deep Fried Firm Tofu (Tau Kwa) 220g (an overseas retailer lists water, soybeans, vegetable oil, stabiliser E509 & E516, salt — not a verified SG pack list).
• LG Foods (FairPrice): Fresh Taukwa 280g, Small Taukwa, Medium Taukwa, Pressed Tofu 300g, Silken Tofu 300g, Egg Tofu 130g, Golden Tofu 300g — all listed at FairPrice, no ingredient list retrieved for any of them.
• Mori-Nu / Morinaga shelf-stable silken tofu (the biggest import gap): Soft, Firm, Extra Firm, Super Soft (nigari), Nigari Firm, Lite Firm, Organic Firm and Mango Dessert Tofu. The brand's own (US) lists are: Firm and Extra Firm — Water, Soybeans, Soy Protein Isolate, Glucono-Delta-Lactone, Calcium Chloride; Soft — Water, Soybeans, Glucono-Delta-Lactone, Calcium Chloride; Super Soft — Water, Soybeans, Soy Protein Isolate, Magnesium Chloride, Salt; Nigari Firm — Water, Soybeans, Soy Protein Isolate, Magnesium Chloride, Trisodium Citrate Dihydrate, Salt; Mango Dessert Tofu — Water, Soybeans, Cane Sugar, Magnesium Chloride, Natural Flavors, Beta-Carotene (Color). None of these is panelled, because no SG retail listing was retrieved in this pass to confirm which variants are sold in Singapore or that the SG pack matches the US list. Needs a Donki / FairPrice Finest / Cold Storage in-store check.
• Angie's Tempeh other variants: Organic Soybean Tempeh, Adzuki Tempeh (brand site: beans + culture only, no full per-product list), and the wider range described by the brand — quinoa, buckwheat, millet, barley and barley-soybean tempeh, chickpea tempeh satay (ready-to-cook, marinated), tempeh chips and tempeh nuggets. No full verbatim list retrieved for any of them. Truffle Tempeh Bak Kwa — list not separately retrieved; do not assume it matches the original Bak Kwa list.
• Other tempeh: frozen tempeh reported as sold at Cold Storage and FairPrice (brand not identified in this pass), Bean My Day / Tempeh Culture and other local makers, tempeh at Nature's Superfoods / Scoop Wholefoods / Ryan's Grocery / SuperNature and other health-food stockists — inventoried by name only, no verified lists.
• Other tofu / imports: House Foods, Pulmuone, Nasoya and other imported silken/firm tofu; Japanese tofu at Don Don Donki, Meidi-Ya and Le Petit Depot; tofu at Mustafa; Little Farms tofu; RedMart and Giant/Sheng Siong house-brand tofu; wet-market loose tofu (no pack list); Fortune Australia listings (fortunetofu.com.au — a different market, 800g packs, not SG lists, not used here).
• Excluded from this page's scope (not soy tofu, or not a tofu block): fish-paste "seafood tofu" and "cheese tofu" (EB Kranch Flower Cheese Tofu, BoBo Seafood Tofu – Cheese, Peng Wang Cheese Tofu, Figo Seafood Tofu — their lists start with fish meat, not soy); fried tau pok and tau kee (BoBo Fried Tau Kee); fermented tofu / fuyu; douhua / tau huay dessert. These are noted here so they are not mistaken for missing soy-tofu rows; if Stephen wants them covered, they belong on their own pages.

Nutrition — what the numbers say

All figures in the table are as sold, per 100 g. Sugars in plain tofu and tempeh are the beans' own sugars, not added sugar — the ingredient panels show which products add sugar (only Angie's Tempeh Bak Kwa, among the panelled products) and which do not. No official Singapore Nutri-Grade (A–D) was found printed on any of these tofu/tempeh listings in this pass, so none is quoted here; no grade has been assigned. (A "Healthier Choice" label on the FairPrice Unicurd and Fortune listings is a different scheme and is not presented here as a Nutri-Grade.)

Salt and sodium: salt = sodium × 2.5. The table shows sodium as printed (in mg) with the salt equivalent in brackets. Sodium is not presented as salt, and salt is not presented as sodium.

Total vs added sugars: Singapore packs list total sugars, not added sugars. A total-sugars figure is never labelled here as "added sugar". Where a source states an added-sugars figure separately, it is noted in the research notes. The ingredient list remains the evidence for added sugar.

Open Food Facts is a community database and is flagged as secondary where used: the pack and the retailer nutrition section take precedence if they disagree. Figures marked "not stated" were not in the source retrieved; they are not estimated, borrowed from another variant, or copied across flavours. Two Open Food Facts figures were rejected as implausible and are not used: the Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu entry's salt figure of 7.5 g per 100 g (which would be about 3,000 mg sodium — inconsistent with a plain silken tofu and with the Unicurd silken figure of 0 mg sodium) and its calcium figure of 107,200 mg per 100 g. Both look like data-entry errors in the database, so sodium for that product is shown as "not stated" rather than repeating an error.

Observed numbers, no verdict: Unicurd Silken Tofu lists 44 kcal and 5.3 g protein per 100 g, Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu lists 58 kcal and 5.3 g protein per 100 g, Fortune Tau Kwa (vacuum-packed) lists about 116 kcal and 13.1 g protein per 100 g, and Biona Organic Tempeh lists 151 kcal and 17 g protein per 100 g. Sodium is 0 mg per 100 g for the Unicurd Silken row where stated. Biona's protein is also given as 16.5 g per 100 g drained by one UK retailer (British Essentials) — a different basis (drained, not as sold), so it is noted here and not substituted into the table.

Seen but not verified (nutrition): no per-100 g nutrition panel was verified in this pass for Fortune Traditional Tau Kwa 450g, Fortune Pressed Tofu 300g, Unicurd Tau Kwa 400g, Unicurd Pressed Tofu 300g, Unicurd Bai Ye Tofu 250g, Angie's Chickpea Tempeh, Angie's Tempeh Bak Kwa, and all products in the seen-but-not-verified list above. Their ingredient panels are unchanged; their nutrition figures are not estimated here, and no figure is copied across variants.

How to read a tofu or tempeh label — the jargon, in plain English

Silken tofu

Undrained, custard-like tofu, set in its tub and never pressed. Softest texture; for soups, steaming, blending and desserts. Usually set with GDL, sometimes with calcium sulfate as well.

Firm / extra firm tofu; tau kwa

Pressed tofu with water pressed out. Tau kwa is the firm, pressed tofu sold in Singapore (often in a vacuum pack); it holds its shape for frying, grilling and braising. Usually set with calcium sulfate and/or calcium chloride, often with salt listed.

Pressed tofu

Pressed harder than tau kwa, dense and cheese-like. The list usually adds a starch (modified starch E1412, tapioca starch) to the coagulants — that is the marker that separates it from plain firm tofu.

Egg tofu

A smooth, tube-shaped tofu made with egg as well as soy milk. Not vegan, and not the same list as plain tofu — check for egg in the allergens. No egg tofu is panelled on this page yet (see seen-but-not-verified).

Bai ye

Layered, sheet-like tofu ("hundred leaves"). The panelled Unicurd version is the only one here set with magnesium chloride (nigari, E511).

Calcium sulfate (E516, gypsum)

The most common coagulant on the SG shelf in this pass. It also adds calcium to the tofu — which is why "25% higher in calcium" claims appear on Unicurd packs.

Glucono-delta-lactone (E575, GDL)

An acid coagulant that sets soy milk into a smooth, even curd, especially for silken tofu. It is not a preservative and not a sweetener, even though its name sounds like a sugar.

Calcium chloride (E509)

A second calcium-salt coagulant, often paired with calcium sulfate in firm tofu and tau kwa. Not the same as table salt, even though both contain a chloride.

Nigari (magnesium chloride, E511)

The traditional Japanese coagulant, the bitter brine left after salt is extracted from seawater. On this page it appears only in Unicurd Bai Ye Tofu and in Mori-Nu's nigari lines (not panelled — SG sale unverified).

Tricalcium phosphate (E341(iii))

A calcium source / stabiliser listed in Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu. It is there for calcium and texture, not as a coagulant on its own.

Tempeh / Rhizopus culture

Tempeh is not curdled at all: whole beans are fermented with a Rhizopus mould culture, which binds them into a cake. "Rhizopus culture" or "Rhizopus oligosporus" on the list is the fermentation starter, not a coagulant and not an additive in the usual sense.

"No added sugar" vs "no sugar"

Plain tofu and tempeh contain small amounts of the beans' own sugars. A list with no sugar in it is not the same as a sugar-free claim; only the flavoured tempeh on this page (Angie's Bak Kwa) actually adds sugar.

What this page is not

• Not a health score, and not a "best" pick. Silken, firm, pressed, egg tofu and tempeh are different products, and this page does not rank them.
• Not a taste test, and not a price comparison. Prices change weekly; ingredients change less often, but still change.
• Not complete. The Fortune egg tofu range, LG Foods, Mori-Nu shelf-stable tofu, most Angie's Tempeh variants and the Donki / Meidi-Ya / Giant / Sheng Siong / Mustafa shelves listed above are not yet panelled, for the verification reasons given, not hidden. Two tau kwa lists disagree between sources and are panelled separately rather than reconciled by guesswork.

Sources and method

Checked 5–6 November 2026 from: FairPrice ingredient section (Unicurd Silken Tofu, with its nutrition section; FairPrice beancurd & tofu and chilled-food category listings for inventory); Amazon Singapore (Fortune Traditional Tau Kwa); Open Food Facts Singapore (Fortune Japanese Silken Tofu, Fortune Tau Kwa vacuum-packed, Unicurd Tau Kwa); Henderson Foodservice specification sheet (Unicurd Pressed Tofu); Pinoys.eu EU importer listing (Fortune Pressed Tofu); Longdan UK importer listing (Unicurd Bai Ye Tofu); UK retailer listings agreeing (Biona Organic Tempeh — PlantX, Whole Food Earth, Real Foods, Healthy Supplies); abillion listing plus Angie's Tempeh brand site (Angie's Chickpea Tempeh, Tempeh Bak Kwa); Fortune Food / PSC Corporation catalogue and annual report (Fortune range and No. 1 brand claim); Mori-Nu brand site (morinu.com — US lists, quoted in research notes only, not panelled). Cold Storage publishes no ingredient list on any product page, so its shelf is inventoried, not panelled. Full per-fact source list is in the accompanying research notes. Nutrition section added 5–6 November 2026: figures are standardised to per 100 g where the source gives per-100 figures; per-serving-only figures are labelled as such and are not converted; sugars are total sugars as printed, not added sugars, unless the source states added sugars; salt = sodium × 2.5. Where a full pack list could not be verified, the product is in seen-but-not-verified instead of being panelled.