Industry | Food products |
---|---|
Founded | 1980 in Forest Grove, Oregon, United States |
Founder | Seth Tibbott |
Headquarters | Hood River, Oregon , United States |
Areas served | United States, Canada |
Key people | |
Products | Meat analogue roasts (Tofurky) tempeh |
Revenue | $14 million [2] (2011) |
Website | tofurky |
Turtle Island Foods is an American company founded in 1980 in Forest Grove, Oregon and headquartered in Hood River, which produces Tofurky, a popular vegetarian and vegan alternative to turkey, as well other meatless products. All of the company's products are vegan, and most are kosher-certified by the Kosher Services of America. [3] Turtle Island Foods is also the first company in the United States to have their products approved by The Vegan Society in the United Kingdom. [4]
The company name is derived from a common legend found amongst the native people of North America. [5] Once, when all of earth was underwater, a turtle offered its shell as a home for land animals, and that shell became North America. As a result, several Native American and First Nations refer to the continent as "Turtle Island." [6] [7]
Headquartered in Hood River, Oregon, Turtle Island Foods began in 1980 in Forest Grove [8] with intentions "to create delicious, nutritious, convenient and affordable vegetarian food." [9] It was founded by Seth Tibbott, [10] [11] who began by producing tempeh for friends and family. [10] Tibbot was inspired to create meat substitutes after having become a vegetarian in college. [2] According to Tibbot, the first twenty years of the company had not been economically fruitful, and he built tree houses on a neighbor's property in Husum, Washington, which he rented out to tenants for additional income. [12] With the help of family, Tibbot eventually expanded his company to what is now the second largest tempeh producer in the United States.[ citation needed ]
The company developed Tofurky in 1995, [2] and initially sold in local markets in Portland, Oregon. [12] During the Thanksgiving season of 1995, the company sold a total of 500 of their Tofurky roasts. [12] In the early 2000s, the company began to grow considerably, shipping a record-breaking 201,108 of their Tofurky roasts in 2006, a 27% increase from the year prior. [13]
In 2008, Turtle Island became a sponsor of The Humane Society, the first food processor to do so in the society's history. [14]
In 2011, the company announced plans to build a new plant in Hood River at a cost of $10 million with a goal to achieve a LEED platinum certification on the building. [15] [16] The new 33,000-square-foot (3,100 m2) plant opened in October 2012. [11]
Since 1995, when Turtle Island Foods took an official stand against GMOs, they have made "every effort possible" to avoid them. [17] Much of what the company produces is organic, and Turtle Island Foods is certified by Oregon Tilth. [18] According to the Cornucopia Institute, Turtle Island uses tofu sourced from 100% organically farmed soybeans, and all manufacturing of products is done in the company's facility. [19] The Green Stars Project awarded Tofurky 5/5 green stars for overall social and environmental impact. [20]
The company refuses food ingredients made with hexane solvent extraction, choosing instead expeller pressed isolates and concentrates. [21]
In 2005, Turtle Island Foods began to purchase all of its electricity from the Blue Sky renewable energy project. [22] All paperboard packaging is recycled. [22] In addition, a certain percentage of each year's Tofurky sales is donated to an environmental charity. [22]
Turtle Island Foods currently produces the following, many in a number of varieties:
In November 2014, Seattle mayor Ed Murray pardoned a Tofurky at Seattle City Hall. [23]
The Reuben sandwich is a North American grilled sandwich composed of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing or Thousand Island dressing, grilled between slices of rye bread. It is associated with kosher-style delicatessens but is not kosher, as it combines meat and cheese.
A meat alternative or meat substitute, is a food product made from vegetarian or vegan ingredients, eaten as a replacement for meat. Meat alternatives typically approximate qualities of specific types of meat, such as mouthfeel, flavor, appearance, or chemical characteristics. Plant- and fungus-based substitutes are frequently made with soy, but may also be made from wheat gluten as in seitan, pea protein as in the Beyond Burger, or mycoprotein as in Quorn. Alternative protein foods can also be made by precision fermentation, where single cell organisms such as yeast produce specific proteins using a carbon source; as well as cultivated or laboratory grown, based on tissue engineering techniques. The ingredients of meat alternative include 50–80% water, 10–25% textured vegetable proteins, 4–20% non-textured proteins, 0–15% fat and oil, 3-10% flavors/spices, 1-5% binding agents and 0-0.5% coloring agents.
Tofurkey is a plant-based meat substitute patterned after turkey, in the form of a loaf of vegetarian protein, usually made from tofu or seitan with a stuffing made from grains or bread, flavored with a broth and seasoned with herbs and spices. It is often served at a vegetarian or vegan Thanksgiving meal.
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Okara, soy pulp, or tofu dregs is a pulp consisting of insoluble parts of the soybean that remain after pureed soybeans are filtered in the production of soy milk and tofu. It is generally white or yellowish in color. It is part of the traditional cuisines of Japan, Korea, and China. Since the 20th century, it has been used in the vegetarian cuisines of Western nations.
Lightlife Foods is a company that produces food for plant-based diets. In 2018, its worth was estimated at $80 million. It is best known for its plant-based veggie dog, Smart Dog, which launched in 1993. In 2019, the company launched a plant-based burger to compete with Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat. Lightlife Foods is a carbon-neutral company.
Tofurky is the brand name of an American vegan turkey replacement made from a blend of wheat protein and organic tofu. Tofurky brand was officially introduced in 1995.
Plamil Foods Is a British manufacturer of vegan food products. Founded in 1965, the company has produced and pioneered soy milk, egg-free mayonnaise, pea-based milk, yogurts, confection bars and chocolate.
La Loma Foods, formerly named Loma Linda Food Company and Loma Linda Foods, and with products presently branded under the name Loma Linda and Loma, is a former food manufacturing company that produced vegetarian and vegan foods. It is presently an active brand of vegetarian and vegan food products produced and purveyed by the Atlantic Natural Foods Company of Nashville, North Carolina. Loma Linda Foods began operations in 1905 under the name The Sanitarium Food Company and was owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church until 1990.
Ten Talents is a vegetarian and vegan cookbook originally published in 1968 by Rosalie Hurd and Frank J. Hurd. At the time, it was one of the few resources for vegetarian and vegan cooks. The cookbook promotes Christian vegetarianism and a Bible-based diet, in keeping with teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. By 1991, the 750-recipe cookbook was entering its 44th printing and had sold more than 250,000 copies. An expanded edition with more than 1,000 recipes was issued in 2012.
The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is a vegan cookbook by Louise Hagler, first published in 1975. It was influential in introducing Americans to tofu, included recipes for making and using tempeh and other soy foods, and became a staple in vegetarian kitchens.
Figs or Pigs? is an 1896 manual on vegetarianism and fruitarianism compiled by James Madison Allen, which contains observations from the author, as well as numerous quotations from eminent authors and authorities.
William Roy Shurtleff also known as Bill Shurtleff is an American researcher and writer about soy foods. Shurtleff and his former wife Akiko Aoyagi have written and published consumer-oriented cookbooks, handbooks for small- and large-scale commercial production, histories, and bibliographies of various soy foods. These books introduced soy foods such as tofu, tempeh, and miso on a wide scale to non-Asian Westerners, and are largely responsible for the establishment of non-Asian soy food manufacturers in the West beginning in the late 1970s. In 1980, Lorna Sass wrote in The New York Times, "The two people most responsible for catapulting tofu from the wok into the frying pan are William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi.” In 1995, Suzanne Hamlin wrote in The New York Times, “At the turn of the century there were two tofu suppliers in the United States. Today there are more than 200 tofu manufacturers...and tofu can be found in nearly every supermarket."
Akiko Aoyagi is an American cookbook author and artist. She is best known as the recipe developer, illustrator, and co-author of the soy-based cookbook series The Book of Tofu (1975), The Book of Miso (1976), and The Book of Tempeh (1979), that had a strong impact on the natural foods movement within the American counterculture.
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