Where is tofurkey made

In , Tibbott was a twenty-seven-year-old environmental educator working in the nature reserves along the Nolichucky River, in Tennessee.

On the Farm, as it was known, Gaskin and twelve hundred of his followers subsisted on acres of soybeans that they grew themselves. The Indonesian foodstuff, split soybeans cultured with Rhizopus oligosporus spores, was largely unknown in America at the time, but one Farm member had learned how to make it from research scientists at Cornell University and the U.

Back on the Nolichucky River, Tibbot ordered a packet of spores from the Farm. He was living in a tent on a state park that summer, and so, after he boiled a pot of soybeans and stirred in the spores, he poured the mixture into a stainless-steel pan and left it to culture, al fresco, overnight.

The next morning, Tibbott awoke to find that a soft, cottony white mold had bloomed around the beans. The tempeh tasted amazing, he decided. In , after he moved to Oregon, it became a business. His first commercial tempeh incubator was a discarded refrigerator heated by Christmas lights.

By , he was selling enough of his product that he was able to lease the kitchen of an abandoned elementary school east of Portland. He lived nearby, in a treehouse he built in three trees that he rented for twenty-five dollars a month. In the course of the nineteen-seventies, he had watched other counterculture staples take over supermarket shelves. In , Tibbott made a fateful tempeh delivery to one of his clients, a vegetarian catering company called the Higher Taste, owned by Hans and Rhonda Wrobel.

For a few years, the Wrobels had been making a stuffed tofu roast, grinding and seasoning the soybean curd themselves, molding it in a colander lined with cheesecloth, then glazing it with orange juice and soy. And we do that by talking about what everyone wants to talk about: the food that makes them Happy. Family-owned for 40 years, Tofurky has always focused on purpose over profits. We make tasty food for plant-eaters, meat-eaters and people who resist labels. Our mission is to make great food everyone can enjoy, and do it with respect for people, animals and the planet.

See why our food tastes so good. Tibbott was convinced tempeh could be the next granola. Working lonely overnight hours, Tibbott struggled to make ends meet. But as more natural foods stores and coops learned about tempeh, the business slowly grew. To meet demand, he moved the business to an abandoned school in the tiny town of Husum, Washington, where the rent was dirt-cheap, and he could live frugally in a treehouse built out of scrap lumber.

Doing business with Rajneeshee cult members, who followed a vegetarian diet and loved tempeh, ruffled feathers further. In , Tibbott moved his tempeh making again to Hood River, which was suddenly bustling with windsurfers.

It would be easier to grow the business with easier access to shipping. And with an expanded facility, he could experiment with new products like marinated tempeh and a tempeh burger. Could Turtle Island make a meat-free main course that would be delicious and celebratory, and not feel like a consolation prize?