Tofurky, the Thanksgiving Peacemaker

Seth Tibbott, Tofurky magnate.

Thanksgiving was always an awkward time for Seth Tibbott, who became a vegetarian due to ethical/environmental concerns in 1972.

“Thanksgiving is the food holiday and everybody wants to sit down and share,” Tibbott said. “I’d go over to somebody’s house and wanted to feel included and everything, so you’d either backslide and eat turkey and not feel great about it, or pick away at salads and side dishes and not feel great about that either.”

In 1980 Tibbott started making and selling tempeh, a fermented soybean cake, under the name Turtle Island Foods.

“I invested $2,500 and started making tempeh at night. We were a little cottage industry, eating a lot of our product and not making very much money, in fact, losing money,” he said.

A Tofurky with all the trimmings.

While the tempeh didn’t seem to be taking off, Tibbott said it became a quest among his friends to find the ultimate food for vegetarians at Thanksgiving.

“We went through a lot of failed attempts. Some were OK and some were abject failures, but nothing was easy and bomb-proof and ready for the centerpiece of the table,” he said. “In 1995 a friend of mine in Portland who we sold tempeh to was selling a tofu roast. He was calling it a Stuffed Tofu Roast. He was making about 30 of these and selling them for 50 bucks. It was three pounds of tofu with stuffing. It was really good.”

Tibbott was intrigued by the Stuffed Tofu Roast and began working with his friend in Portland to refine the concept.

“I have some drumsticks made out of tempeh that I added and gravy and called it Tofurky. It was a joint venture that first year. We sold about 500 for 30 bucks,” he said. “We didn’t know what Tofurky looks like in the wild, but we knew it has eight legs because there were eight drumsticks in the box.”

The eight drumsticks were to satisfy an entire group of vegetarians sitting around the holiday table, Tibbott said.

“We found it was more often one or two stray vegetarians showing up at a house where they are cooking a turkey,” he said. “So we made smaller and smaller portions until we settled on the current 26-ounce roast, which still is big enough to sit on the table and hold its own and feed four to six people, or two people with leftovers.”

While the Tofurky has grown smaller in the nearly two decades since it was first introduced, sales have grown far beyond the 500 sold the first year.

“We expect to sell about 350,000, possibly 400,000 this year, depending on how the season goes,” Tibbott said. “Ninety percent of the yearly sales of those are in the fourth quarter. Holiday sales are about 14 percent of our overall sales. We’ve done a good job of marketing, and our Tofurky sausages and deli slices have become popular. We are now the largest producer of meatless vegetarian refrigerated sausages and deli slices on the planet. Those are more of our year-round staples.”

The Tofurky has not only become a tradition in many American homes, Tibbott refers to it as “a peacemaker.”

Surprisingly, Tibbott said flexitarians – the 100 million or so people who regularly eat vegetarian but have not forsaken meat – are the biggest part of Turtle Island Food’s market.

“There’s never been a better time to sell meat alternatives to the American public,” Tibbott said. “Meat alternatives have come a long way. We try to develop products that have the textures and flavors of meat, which is odd to some people. They always ask, ‘If you don’t like meat so much, why is it that you’re trying to imitate it?’ The answer is very simple:  I grew up eating chicken, beef, everything. I probably had a hamburger every day when I was in high school. I gave up meat not for the taste, texture or flavor. I’m a vegan, but if I’m walking down the street and someone has a barbecue going, I’m like, wow, that smells good. You’re just trying to deliver some of that satisfaction without the environmental, ethical and nutritional challenges of meat.”

Need a Tofurky roast for your holiday gathering? Greens N Grains Natural Foods in Egg Harbor has them.