Turtle Island Foods is an American company founded in 1980 in

Forest Grove, Oregon Forest Grove is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, west of Portland. Originally a small farm town, it is now primarily a commuter town in the Portland metro area. Settled in the 1840s, the town was platted in 1850, then incorpora ...

and headquartered in Hood River, which produces

Tofurky Tofurky is the brand name of an American vegan turkey replacement (also known as a meat analogue, or, more specifically, tofurkey) made from a blend of wheat protein and organic tofu. Tofurky® is a trademark of Turtle Island Foods, a company ...

, a popular

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism m ...

and

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. Di ...

alternative to

turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, as well other meatless products. All of the company's products are vegan, and most are

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

-certified by the Kosher Services of America. Turtle Island Foods is also the first company in the United States to have their products approved by

The Vegan Society The Vegan Society is a registered charity and the oldest vegan organization in the world, founded in the United Kingdom in 1944 by Donald Watson, Elsie Shrigley, George Henderson and his wife Fay Henderson among others. History In November, ...

in the United Kingdom.

History

Headquartered in

Hood River, Oregon The city of Hood River is the seat of Hood River County, Oregon, United States. It is a port on the Columbia River, and is named for the nearby Hood River. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 8,313. It is the only city in Oregon whe ...

, Turtle Island Foods began in 1980 in Forest Grove with intentions "to create delicious, nutritious, convenient and affordable vegetarian food." It was founded by Seth Tibbott,Company History
/ref> who began by producing

tempeh Tempeh or tempe (; jv, ꦠꦺꦩ꧀ꦥꦺ, témpé, ) is a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. A fungus, ''Rhizopus ...

for friends and family. Tibbot was inspired to create meat substitutes after having become a vegetarian in college. The company name is derived from a common legend found amongst the native people of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. Once, when all of

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

was underwater, a

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

offered its shell as a home for land animals, and that shell became North America. As a result, several Native American and

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

refer to the continent as "Turtle Island." With the help of family, Tibbot eventually expanded his company to what is now the second largest tempeh producer in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Turtle Island Foods has no parent company. The famous Tofurky was only developed in 1995, and initially sold in local markets in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. According to Tibbot, the first twenty years of the company had not been economically fruitful, and he built

tree house A tree house, tree fort or treeshed is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a han ...

s on a neighbor's property in

Husum, Washington Husum is an unincorporated community in the White Salmon River Valley in the state of Washington. Under the bridge in Husum, Washington, just miles from Hood River, Oregon and the scenic Columbia Gorge, Husum Falls is a vertical Class V waterfa ...

, which he rented out to tenants for additional income. During the Thanksgiving season of 1995, the company sold a total of 500 of their Tofurky roasts. 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. In 2008, Turtle Island became a sponsor of The Humane Society, the first food processor to do so in the society's history. 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. The new plant opened in October 2012.

Ecological responsibility

Since 1995, when Turtle Island Foods took an official stand against GMOs, they have made "every effort possible" to avoid them. Much of what the company produces is organic, and Turtle Island Foods is actually an "Organic Processor", certified as

Oregon Tilth Oregon Tilth is an American nonprofit membership organization advocating organic food and farming, based in Corvallis, Oregon. Oregon Tilth's purpose is to educate gardeners, farmers, legislators, and the general public about sustainable growing ...

Certified Organic. According to the

Cornucopia Institute The Cornucopia Institute is a national food and farm policy watchdog group working to uphold the integrity of organic, local, and other forms of alternative agriculture. The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization is headquartered in Cornucopia, Wisco ...

, Turtle Island uses tofu sourced from 100% organically farmed

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

s, and all manufacturing of products is done in the company's facility. The Green Stars Project awarded Tofurky 5/5 green stars for overall social and environmental impact. The company refuses food ingredients made with

hexane Hexane () is an organic compound, a straight-chain alkane with six carbon atoms and has the molecular formula C6H14. It is a colorless liquid, odorless when pure, and with boiling points approximately . It is widely used as a cheap, relatively ...

solvent extraction, choosing instead

expeller Expeller pressing (also called oil pressing) is a mechanical method for extracting oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes w ...

pressed isolates and concentrates. In 2005, Turtle Island Foods began to purchase all of its electricity from the Blue Sky renewable energy project of the northwestern

.Sustainability
/ref> All paperboard packaging is recycled. In addition, a certain percentage of each year's Tofurky sales is donated to an

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

charity.

Products

Turtle Island Foods currently produces the following, many in a number of varieties:

In popular culture

In November 2014,

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

mayor Ed Murray

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the ju ...

ed a Tofurky at

Seattle City Hall Seattle City Hall (also known as the Seattle Municipal Building) is the home of the offices of the mayor and city council of Seattle, Washington, located between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue in the downtown area of the city. Most city departments h ...

References

Works cited

External links

*Company {{official website, http://www.tofurky.com/ Privately held companies based in Oregon Meat substitutes Companies established in 1980 Companies based in Hood River, Oregon 1980 establishments in Oregon Vegetarian companies and establishments of the United States