MY STORY
For decades Richard has been a leading innovator in the natural food industry. Starting with soyfoods such as TofuRella, Cottage Tofu Salad, and LeTofu sold around the world, in 1994 he turned from soya to hempseed, an older and far more nutritious protein source.
Since 1980 Richard invented, produced, and marketed dozens of products based on tofu, and was the only small or natural food company to be named the “Top Ten Innovators of 1985” by Food and Beverage Marketing magazine. In 1986 TofuRella, was introduced, sales of which landed the firm on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in the U.S. in 1993, done with no debt.
Once known as a “Tofu Mogul” he is also called “The Hemp Nut” as HempNut Inc. was the first Best Practices hempseed foods company in North America, 1994 – 2002. He was the first by years to introduce shelled hempseed to North America and provided the inspiration for today’s hempseed companies.
Richard designed a new company around the vision of branded shelled hempseed as a replacement for soy in the food industry. That company became the proof-of-concept business model for the hempseed industry to this day, and the segment is now 90% of Canadian hemp. The first significant change from millennia of fiber hemp, it is considered “Hemp 2.0” in the evolution of hemp.
At the time no one had imported non-sterilized shelled hempseed food. The risk was possible that if the U.S. wanted to stop this emerging industry, he could have been sentenced to multiple life terms based on the volume imported.
