The name "Turtle Island" comes from a common Native American legend and is their name for the North American continent. The story tells us that North America is perched on the back of a very large tortoise who has volunteered its shell as a home for the land animals.

Turtle Island Foods was founded in 1980 by Seth Tibbott in Forest Grove, Oregon.

In 1982, the company expanded with the help of loans from Bob and Betty Tibbott, Seth's brother and mother and moved to an abandoned schoolhouse with a beautiful commercial kitchen in Husum, Washington, 75 miles east of Portland, Oregon.

In 1992, Turtle Island moved across the Columbia River to Hood River, Oregon where it renovated an old cannery building where it is housed today.

The 8,000 square feet of manufacturing space overlooks the Columbia which is home in the summer to growing leagues of windsurfers. In 1995, the company introduced the Tofurky® Vegetarian Feast to a very skeptical natural foods industry. The response was overwhelming!

Today, Turtle Island is the second largest Tempeh manufacturer in the country and the # 1 Tofurky Products producer in the universe!