The Exchanges

Q Wow. Around this time, you're in your early twenties, you come across this book, Diet for a Small Planet, which, like, has this huge effect on you. What is the book? For people who don't know it, and what, what did you learn from that book?

A Well, this was a book by Frances Moore LePay, and she was the first person to point out to the American public, and to me personally, that the, there was no sense of feeding all of these grains through animals. You know, you take 15 pounds of grains and put it in To an animal, and you get maybe eight ounce or a pound of meat, as opposed to if you feed grain directly to people, boom, you know, you've saved so much grain and resources and land and everything, and it made sense to me as a naturalist, because I was really concerned about habitat loss, and I thought, Well, if there was a sufficient way of producing protein for people, that there would be a lot less habitat loss.

AI assessment note: “this was a book by Frances Moore LePay, and she was the first person”

Q And they, they're making, like, this tofu roast that you kind of come across. What, what, what's the story?

A Um, yeah, so Hans and Rhonda Robel run the Higher Taste, which is a great sandwich company, and it's been in business since the early 19 eighties, and Hans, especially, anything he touches turns to gold. He's like one of the best chefs that I've ever met, and he was, in 1994, I was delivering tempeh to him, and he was making, it was around Thanksgiving, these stuffed tofu roasts that He had been working on, and he was selling them about to 25 or 50 a year, and they were a dome of tofu with stuffing in the middle, and I was always looking for something to eat at Thanksgiving, and we had tried all these stuffed pumpkins that kind of collapsed in the oven, and Gluten roasts that were too tough to cut with a chainsaw. So we were failing, and then I saw with Hans, this is like something possible.

AI assessment note: “in 1994, I was delivering tempeh to him, and he was making... these stuffed tofu roasts”

Q Yeah, so when did you, I mean, when, when did you get this idea to turn this into a business? Like, uh, how, how did that idea come to mind?

A Well, my girlfriend Kim and I moved into a house in Manning, Oregon, which is on the way to the coast on Highway 26. Right down the street was this restaurant called the Java Restaurant, and it was right in Manning, which is a town of about 50 people. It's, was the only Indonesian restaurant a hundred yards from my house, and I was, this is a sign, and so I got to go down and meet him. So I met this woman, Ina, And she was the proprietor of it, and I said, it doesn't look like you have tempeh on the menu. And she goes, you know how to make tempeh? You know about tempeh? And I said, yeah, I can make you some. And she said, really? And so she ordered two pounds, and I, and she said, but it's gotta be good tempeh. And if it is, I'll order more, and I'll sell it to all my friends. So I went there, and I made that tempeh, I brought it back, she liked it, and she ordered 10 more pounds. And because of that, I felt like, you know, this is a good sign, so I went to the local co-op, Forest Grove, and asked if they would rent me their kitchen at night, and they said, yeah, we can rent it out to you for 25 dollars a month. So it was like, great. So at December one, 1980, I sent in my stamped envelope to the state of Oregon and registered Turtle Island Soy Dairy.

AI assessment note: “December one, 1980, I sent in my stamped envelope to the state of Oregon”

Q Around this time, you're in your early twenties, you come across this book, Diet for a Small Planet, which, like, has this huge effect on you. What is the book? For people who don't know it, and what, what did you learn from that book?

A Well, this was a book by Frances Moore LePay, and she was the first person to point out to the American public, and to me personally, that the, there was no sense of feeding all of these grains through animals. You know, you take 15 pounds of grains and put it in to an animal, and you get maybe eight ounce or a pound of meat. As opposed to if you feed grain directly to people, boom, you know, you've saved so much grain and resources and land and everything, and it made sense to me as a naturalist because I was really concerned about habitat loss, and I thought, Well, if there was a sufficient way of producing protein for people, that there would be a lot less habitat loss.

AI assessment note: “this was a book by Frances Moore LePay, and she was the first person”

Q Yeah, so when did you, I mean, when, when did you get this idea to turn this into a business? Like, uh, how, how did that idea come to mind?

A Well, my girlfriend Kim and I moved into a house in Manning, Oregon, which is on the way to the coast on Highway 26. Right. Right down the street was this restaurant called the Java Restaurant, and it was right in Manning, which is a town of about 50 people. It's, was the only Indonesian restaurant a hundred yards from my house, and I was, this is a sign, and so I gotta go down and meet him. So I met this woman, Ina, And she was the proprietor of it, and I said, it doesn't look like you have tempeh on the menu. And she goes, you know how to make tempeh? You know about tempeh? And I said, yeah, I can make you some. And she said, really? And so she ordered two pounds, and I, and she said, but it's gotta be good tempeh. And if it is, I'll order more, and I'll sell it to all my friends. So I went there, and I made that tempeh, I brought it back, she liked it, and she ordered 10 more pounds. And because of that, I felt like, you know, this is a good sign, so I went to the local co-op, Forest Grove, and asked if they would rent me their kitchen at night, and they said, yeah, we can rent it out to you for 25 dollars a month. So it was like, great. So at December one, 1980, I sent in my stamped envelope to the state of Oregon and registered Turtle Island Soy Dairy.

AI assessment note: “she liked it, and she ordered 10 more pounds. And because of that”

Q Did you, were you able to, in the late nineties, start to see a light at the end of the tunnel? Because, I mean, were you thinking, God, I've been doing this for 20 years, and we are still not profitable? Or were you at that point saying, you know what, I actually can see where this thing might be headed?

A Oh, yeah. Just from the first response to the Tofurky, it just felt so different than anything I had felt before marketing Tempe, that I really felt like this is gonna really turn around at some point, and it, it really did, and you're right that a lot of the media exposure from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times and At one point, I had to put the Washington Post on hold to talk to the New York Times. It was just crazy. For Tofurky. And so these, that was like our bully pulpit, kind of. It really, then Thanksgiving rolled around, the trees would turn gold and brown, and here would come the Tofurky, and here would come the media to us, and so we had millions. A little better. But, you know.

AI assessment note: “Oh, yeah. Just from the first response to the Tofurky, it just felt so different”

Q Did you, were you able to, in the late nineties, start to see a light at the end of the tunnel? Because, I mean, were you thinking, God, I've been doing this for 20 years, and we are still not profitable? Or were you at that point saying, you know what, I actually can see where this thing might be headed?

A Oh, yeah. Just from the first response to the Tofurky, it just felt so different than anything I had felt before marketing Tempe, that I really felt like this is gonna really turn around at some point, and it, it really did, and you're right, that a lot of the media exposure from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, and at one point I had to put the Washington Post on hold to talk to the New York Times. It was just crazy. And so these, that was like our bully pulpit, kind of, it, it really, then Thanksgiving rolled around, the Trees would turn gold and brown, and here would come the Tofurky, and here would come the media to us, and so we had millions. A little better, but, you know.

AI assessment note: “Oh, yeah. Just from the first response to the Tofurky, it just felt so different”