With the help of family, Tibbot eventually expanded his company to what is now the second largest tempeh producer in the United States. Turtle Island Foods has no parent company. The famous Tofurky was only developed in 1995, and initially sold in local markets in Portland, Oregon. According to Tibbot, the first twenty years of the company had not been economically fruitful, and he built tree houses on a neighbor's property in Husum, Washington, 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.