A B r i e f I n t r o d u c t i o n by Greg Caton, Founder ( bio ) Updated: February, 2000 Lumen Foods is a whole foods manufacturing company, located in Lake Charles, Louisiana (about 135 miles east of Houston, see map). We sell over 300 manufactured and packaged health food products, ranging from vegetarian jerkies to dried fruits and vegetables to complete meal entrees to long-term storage food items. As always, our speciality is delicious vegetarian fare, but in the beginning, we produced just one line of products... Lumen Foods was founded in 1986 to take advantage of a new development in food science for the manufacture of meat replacement products (or "meat analogs") from textured soy flour. Meat analogs had already been around for a number of years, but most of them were lacking -- and a good many downright awful. The most frequently cited vegetarian protein fare -- tofu, miso, tempeh, etc. were not simply considered exotic by mainstream Westerners, they were largely regarded as unpalatable. The reasons for developing more acceptable meat replacements were so numerous that I wrote a 250 page book, entitled LUMEN with over 300 scientific studies and research sources to underscore the need. Our company sold over 30,000 copies -- primarily to our mail order customers. Later I would distill the strongest arguments of my book into a brochure entitled "50 Reasons Why I Am A Vegetarian," which I strongly recommend to interested people, vegetarian or not. (These same principles were to form the basis of the Company's Credo.) Today Lumen Foods manufacturers a wide array of analog products for domestic and international consumption. Our marketing efforts span the commercial, retail, institutional, co-packaging, and private label markets. Our meat analogs generally fall into one of two categories: (1) pre-cooked cooking meats, which usually require a few minutes of reconstitution in water prior to use, and (2) snack products, primarily "jerkies," which are enjoyed right from the bag! More recently our work in meat replacements has caused us to team with U.S. World Foods in the production of quality entrees with extended shelf-life. In addition to our meat replacements and meat-free entree meals, we have an extensive line of dried fruits and vegetables, grains, legumes, pastas, and other natural food products -- all available from our Virtual Store. Although our Catalogue is just a few clicks away, we do encourage our customers to call their closest health food wholesaler (we provide this information by region and by alphabetical order) and ask for the closest health food store or supermarket which carries our products. This way you can enjoy our products while supporting your own local retailer. For more information on our work at Lumen Foods, call our home office at 800-256-2253 (or 337-436-6748 if your outside the continental U.S.), fax us via the internet, or send us email. We encourage and promptly respond to all correspondence. Home Page Map of Our Location Meet Our Staff