CMBA Member Highlight: Tootie’s Tempeh

Tootie’s Tempeh – Deliciously Local, Sustainable, and Democratic

Legumes, Labor, and Local Love

You expect them to creak, but they don’t. The floors in one of the 1800s Pepperell Mill buildings at 10 West Point Lane in Biddeford are remarkably solid. They’re also beautiful, as are the oversized windows, lofty ceilings, and gleaming equipment inside the 2,000-square-foot space where Tootie’s Tempeh has been operating for the past five years.

I first visited this space about a year into their lease when Sarah Speare and her founding partner were still deep in the development phase. They were refining their production process, setting up equipment, and testing custom-designed proprietary fermentation vessels. I remember being both amazed and a little anxious. It was clear how much thought and research was going into every step, and I felt an urgency for them to get this well-made product to market. This wasn’t their first location, and they’d incorporated back in 2019. Naturally, the pandemic slowed progress across the board, but I really wanted them to get to market right then and there.

In hindsight, I’m glad they took their time. Every decision was intentional, every system thoughtfully designed. After years of persistence, Tootie’s officially debuted at Portland VegFest at the very end of October 2022, just in time to close out Co-op Month. Their first distributor order sold out quickly and needed to be filled again in just a few days. They’ve been steadily growing ever since, doubling sales every year.

Watching Sarah’s determination and the co-op’s growth has been incredibly rewarding. As an aside, I’d love to see a skilled writer or a sharp business student turn Tootie’s journey into a full case study! Theirs is a powerful model to learn from for any co-op or small business navigating a challenging landscape. Despite mounting hurdles, they’ve carved out a leading role in the local, environmentally conscious, plant-based food market

In July, I cashed in a raffle prize I’d won at the Maine Food Convergence earlier in the year: a box of 12 tempeh packages and a tour of the production facility. I was thrilled and very curious to see what had changed. The space looked much the same at first glance, but a lot had evolved behind the scenes. For one, I had a chance to meet their production team, including worker-owner Stuart Hewitt, a team that didn’t exist when I first visited. They are now running a dramatically scaled-up fermentation operation: their old seven-pan prototype incubator has been replaced with a custom-designed unit, funded by a second grant from Maine Technology Institute, which now takes up a significant footprint in the facility. It can incubate dozens of baker’s racks, each holding 20 pans of soaked, cooked, spun, and inoculated local and regional organic soybeans.

All aspects of production, new and old, showcase the co-op’s commitment to local sourcing and sustainable practices. For example, their fermentation pans are locally made, and the new panning machine was developed in collaboration with UMaine’s Advanced Manufacturing Center. Together, the fermentation pans and upgraded incubation room eliminated the need for single-use plastic bags (they’ve already saved over 75K bags from landfills), while the panning machine cut production time from 3 to 4 minutes per pan to just 60 seconds. These are just two of the co-op’s meaningful adjustments that have contributed to reduction in labor, increase in production output, and reduction of waste. 

Beyond the equipment, the co-op’s approach to ingredient sourcing reveals another layer of care grounded in their core values and mission. Tootie’s initially sourced organic soybeans from a local producer. Once the beans arrived, however, they required splitting and dehulling in a mill, cleaning, and careful monitoring during soaking to prevent straggling hulls from interfering with the process. This process quickly became unmanageable, leading the co-op to look for ways to improve. Switching to commercially split and dehulled beans proved to be a major labor- and cost-saver, prompting a temporary shift to a regional supplier who could meet that need. Yet, still devoted to local, sustainable sourcing, the co-op partnered with their preferred, more local producer to secure two grants that funded on-farm equipment upgrades, allowing the beans to be split and dehulled right on the farm. Thus, the co-op invested in their partners to make the whole local food system stronger while enhancing their product and making their production more efficient. This kind of values-driven, solution-focused approach is Tootie’s Tempeh at its core: a model for how cooperatives can lead with purpose, strengthen local systems, and grow sustainably. Worth celebrating!

Mold & Behold: The Making of Tempeh at Tootie’s

So how do they make their tempeh? Well, I’m not allowed to tell you exactly how it’s made, but let’s see if I can paint a good enough picture of this two-day long journey from dry bean in a bulk bag to exquisite, nutritious, high-protein, more environmentally friendly, and sought-after food product. 

The first things I noticed when entering the production space (after gulping up the mill-charm) were the order of two-ton (4,000 pounds) pallets stacked with white bags of dry, dehulled soybeans. During the tour, I learned that the production process begins with pouring those dry beans into a large kettle where Tootie’s soaks no less than 109 lbs of beans per production cycle. Soaking gets rid of impurities, hydrates, breaks down enzymes for easier digestion and levels the PH before the beans are boiled to an al dente texture. 

Steaming and nutty beige, the beans then emerge from boiling and are quickly cooled with water. Excess liquid is spun off and the beans are evenly dried using a centrifuge. They are then poured into a large tumbler in the back corner of the production room. Originally made by a farmer to mix animal feed, the tumbler is perfect for blending beans with vinegar and Rhizopus Oligosporus, the mushroom spore starter used in tempeh-making. It’s also during this stage that the rich, delicious curry spices are added to one of Tootie’s tempeh varieties currently available in stores. 

Once the beans have been properly inoculated in the tumbler, it’s time for spore germination, which is the fermentation process that binds the beans together into the delicious final tempeh product. It’s at this critical moment that Tootie’s process sets them apart. Innovative, proprietary, reusable metal pans allow the co-op to cut 100% of single-use plastics from the fermentation process. Beyond waste-reduction, this unique method produces tempeh with nutty richness and none of the bitter aftertaste common in other brands. After the inoculated beans are finally spread into those mysterious pans by the panning machine, they are placed on racks and rolled into the fermentation room. 

The fermentation room transforms the inoculated beans into solid tempeh cakes by providing the optimal climate for growing mushrooms (mycelium), carefully controlling temperature, airflow, and humidity to replicate the natural conditions of Indonesia, where tempeh has been traditionally made for centuries. The cakes emerge from the fermentation room 24 hours later on day two of production and every bean cake is inspected. This quality control stage ensures that bean discolorations or other inconsistencies won’t make it to consumers’ plates. After inspection, the pristine tempeh is cut into single consumer and bulk size sections, vacuum sealed in a plastic bag (they use 50% less plastic – only one bag – after it is fermented), heat treated to food safety standards, dunked in cooling water, dried on a mini conveyor belt, and finally dressed in retail-ready packaging. The heat treatment allows the tempeh to have a 16 week refrigerated shelflife, which has been key for scaling distribution, making Tootie’s tempeh available in over 300 stores from Maine to New Jersey.

Beyond the Bean

With a clear purpose grounded in values, Tootie’s launched bold marketing and education campaigns designed to demystify tempeh and expand its audience. Sarah spearheaded messaging around tempeh as a “sleeping giant” of sustainable plant-based protein, highlighting its nutritional benefits, environmental footprint, and versatility through storytelling at specialty food events. Using recipes, chef endorsements, social media platforms, and televised business competitions, Tootie’s has converted skeptics into champions. They’ve even brought on a summer intern to turn their TempehTuesday recipes into a free “Ultimate Tempeh Cookbook”. They have been sharing recipes at events and on social media from day one to help bridge the gap between curiosity and conversion among new audiences.

On the funding and development front, Tootie’s has combined grassroots cooperative capital with aligned impact investments. They raised $363,000 from individual and institutional investors to scale from R&D into production, then secured an additional $300,000 to build out equipment and distribution infrastructure. A Maine Technology Institute grant was also used to scale up the proprietary fermentation equipment. In addition, they have secured debt financing twice from CFNE for a total of $280K for capital equipment purchases. This mix of debt, grant support, cooperative investment, and mission-aligned financing has allowed Tootie’s to invest deliberately in infrastructure, outreach, and expansion, all while preserving its worker‑owned democratic structure. Sarah shared her knowledge and experience with funding and growing Tootie’s with the co-op community at the 2025 Principle Six Conference. This document was developed as a result: Resources for Financing & Growing Cooperatives in Maine. Please use it as a guide or reference document. 

With a clear vision and a deep understanding of both the end product and the nuances of production, the Tootie’s team built their business on the co-op’s core values: community, sustainability, transparency, and equity. They source organic soybeans regionally, support local agriculture, and innovate to minimize waste – most notably by eliminating single-use fermentation plastics. As a worker-owned cooperative, they foster a workplace of democratic ownership, profit-sharing, and living wages. Through tenacious outreach, thoughtful marketing, and collaborative partnerships, they’ve transformed their ideals into tangible impact. The “sleeping giant” has begun to stir, growing into something larger: a source of nourishment, a driver of local economic vitality, and a catalyst for meaningful connection among farmers, workers, and eaters alike.