Wheaty Weenies 2.0

Wheaty and Veggyness: Successful Vegan Brands with a Long History

TOPAS is a leading manufacturer of vegan meat and cheese alternatives made from wheat and other plant-based proteins. With a quarter-century of experience, this Swabian family-owned company stands for progress rooted in tradition: Company founder Klaus Gaiser was one of the first to introduce tofu to Germany in the 1980s. A decade later, he reinvented the 1,500-year-old seitan tradition—originally established by Buddhist monks—to suit Western tastes.

Since 1993, TOPAS has been producing products such as sausages, steaks, and burgers—but made entirely from plant-based wheat protein. The vegan organic products are sold under the “Wheaty” and “Veggyness” brands. While much of the business initially operated from the living room table at home, today the company works out of Mössingen near Tübingen and its own factory near Stuttgart to export seitan products throughout Europe. Klaus Gaiser continues to personally oversee the development of the cold cuts, burgers, stir-fries, and snack bars to this day.

For him, the trend toward a plant-based diet is not a passing fad, but an appropriate response to the global ecological crisis: “When you consume products made from meat, milk, or eggs, you’re not only accepting that animals are born, kept in agonizing conditions, and killed—the animal industry is also the biggest polluter of all. That is why even established organizations like the UN are now pointing out the urgent need for a fundamental global shift in dietary habits away from animal products,” says Gaiser.

Although production output has increased enormously since the company’s early days, the company is now more committed than ever to operating in a consistently sustainable manner: “No natural habitats are destroyed in the extraction of our raw materials; no virgin forests are cleared, no human rights are violated, and no long transport routes are used,” according to the company’s pledge.