A natural talent

HOOD RIVER, Ore. – Sometimes it pays to be the butt of jokes.

Like Spam, Chia Pets and The Clapper, Oregon-made Tofurky has registered fast-rising sales in recent years despite a name that’s widely mocked in popular culture.

But Turtle Island Foods Inc., the Hood River company that makes Tofurky and a line of other “meat alternatives,” faces serious business questions these days. Can it grow big enough fast enough to survive against larger and better financed rivals? And if so, is the company’s enigmatic founder, Seth Tibbott, the right person to lead the way?

The company’s growth in the past decade has been startling.

Turtle Island’s sales of its signature product, an imitation turkey intended to give vegetarians something to eat at Thanksgiving, grew from 500 units in 1995 to 150,000 last year. The company now also sells a range of products under the Tofurky brand, from deli slices to meatless sausages to a vegetarian jerky called Tofurky Jurky.

In 2004, it recorded the nation’s fastest growth in the meat substitute category, according to one industry tracker. A significant reason, Tibbott readily admits, is a catchy product name.

“You can’t say Tofurky without smiling,” said Tibbott, Turtle Island’s founder, president and majority owner, smiling under a gray goatee. “We built our company on that.”

But building a company isn’t necessarily enough.

Tibbott is “facing a new stage of business,” said Stan Amy, a founder of the Nature’s chain of natural food stores. Amy now says he regrets his 1996 decision to sell his business for $17.5 million.

“He has to decide if he wants to grow, how he wants to grow, and how he wants to fund it.” Or, like the founders of leading meat alternative companies – such as Lightlife, Boca Burger and Yves – he could sell the business to a food industry conglomerate.

Tibbott acknowledges the company is at a crossroads, and admits that he wonders whether he is the best person to take Turtle Island to its next stage.

“I’m assessing what’s next,” he said. “As the needs for a company grows, the founders aren’t always the ones to take things to fruition.”

Mike Russo, chairman of the management department at the University of Oregon’s Lundquist College of Business, said it’s not unusual for small-business owners to find themselves in Tibbott’s position.

“It’s typical for small companies to encounter crisis points,” Russo said. “Often they have to bring on professional management when the competencies of the founder just aren’t enough to take the company further.”

There’s no question that Tibbott was the right person to start Turtle Island Foods. He combines an environmentalist’s sensibility with a wry, almost self-mocking sense of humor.

He founded the company in 1980, selling tempeh to restaurants, natural food stores and natural food distributors. Tempeh, made from fermented soy beans, is popular in Indonesia and other parts of South Asia, and with some vegetarians in this country.

Tibbott first worked in a Forest Grove food co-op, making tempeh part time. Then he moved his operation to an abandoned schoolhouse in Husum, Wash., about 10 miles north of Hood River.

While in Husum, he said, he made about $3,000 annually and lived – for seven years – in a tree house on land he rented for $25 a month. He said he moved Turtle Island Foods to Hood River in 1992 after tempeh production outgrew the schoolhouse.

It’s the resume of an earnest hippie. But ask Tibbott about Tofurky, and his humor comes through.

“At holidays, being a vegetarian was this lonely thing,” he said. “The meat eaters were having a great time, gnawing on drumsticks and everything. And here was the little vegetarian, with his peas and salad.”