WholeSoy Founder

During the 1970s, WholeSoy & Co. founder Ted Nordquist led a double life - professor of Asian philosophy by day and tofu-maker by night. In 1975, Ted met William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, the authors of the Book of Tofu. From them, he learned traditional Chinese and Japanese methods of converting soybeans into dairy-like products. This meeting changed the course of Ted's life. What started as a hobby for Ted quickly turned into a passion. Leaving his academic life behind, Ted began his mission to make the best tasting, most natural and nutritious dairy alternatives on the planet. Over thirty years later, he remains hooked on soy and is still just as passionate about crafting the world's most delicious soyfoods.

Ted's first venture was a small soyfoods plant near Uppsala, Sweden. This little plant, pieced together from used equipment and with just five employees, churned out two tons of tofu and tofu-related products each week. Ted was so dedicated to his trade that he and his wife Anne-Marie, along with their three young children, lived in an apartment above the plant. Up until 1990, his was the only soy plant of its kind in Scandinavia.

In 1994, Ted moved back to the United States with his family and started WholeSoy a few years later. The first product to be introduced in 1999 was our creamy soy yogurt. This product was so well received that it quickly became the best-selling non-dairy yogurt on the market. Though WholeSoy is now a little bigger, Ted can still be found in the kitchen "playing with soy" or sailing on the San Francisco Bay (his other passion).