What is Lumen Foods?
Lumen Foods (hereafter "Company") is a food manufacturing company, co-packing and private labelling operation, and wholesaler / direct marketer of animal replacement products. Corporately, Lumen Foods is now a division of Herbologics, Ltd., a Louisiana corporation created in 1992. Originally founded in 1986 by Mr. Greg Caton, all administrative, manufacturing, and marketing activities are conducted from its facilities in Lake Charles, Louisiana (pop. 80,000, located about 56 miles east of Beaumont, Texas).

The core business of the Company is its exclusive lines of animal replacement products. The founder, Greg Caton, has been a vegetarian for over 20 years and the character of the Company can be found in both the Company Credo and in Caton's 50 Reasons Why I'm A Vegetarian. Mr. Caton gives a brief and personal comment about why he founded the Company in this site's Welcome page.
Besides being known for its animal substitute products, Lumen Foods has sponsored a number of high profile research projects into the nutritional value of soy protein derivatives. The most famous of these projects is the University of Toronto study on cholesterol reduction, subsequently published in the New England Journal of Medicine (7/93), discussed elsewhere in this FAQ section.



Who owns the Company?
It's surprising how often we get this question. Lumen Foods is owned by Herbologics, Ltd., a private Louisiana corporation. Its shares of stock are privately, not publicly, held and traded.


Are you publicly traded?
No, we are not publicly traded. All shares of stock are privately held.


In broad terms, what are all the products you manufacture?
Better than 80% of Lumen Foods' sales come from the sale of three distinct lines of "meat analogs" (meat replacement products). Virtually, all Lumen Foods' analogs are shelf-stable, flavored, "soy flour concentrate" products. The details on what this really means (for the uninitiated) is discussed in more detail in the product section. The three lines are:

• Heartline Meatless Meats - Shelf-stable products designed to take the place of meat in the kitchen. That is, you cook with them. All that is required is water, heat and about ten minutes of time. They integrate well with a wide variety of real meat recipes. Heartline products have their own recipes page, and you can study its nutritional profile on this site.
• Cajun Jerky - A line of "dry chew" imitation beef jerky products. We talk about Cajun Jerky on our snack page and provide its nutritional profile.
• Stonewall's Jerquee - A line of imitation beef jerky products with a "wetter chew" than the original Cajun Jerky line. We talk about Stonewall's on our snack page, along with Cajun Jerky, and provide its nutritional profile.

The other 20% or so of the Company's products include a variety of private label corn and rice snacks, milk replacers, bean mixes, and other basic packaged foods.


What's the founding principle behind Lumen Foods?
We covered this lightly in our description of the Company. The founding principle behind Lumen Foods is that, fundamentally, people should not eat animals, particularly when they have at their disposal products that look and taste like animal foods, are heathier, low in cost, are kinder to the environment, readily available, and easy to use.
Again, we have a Company Credo that explains our goals as a company, and the Company's founder has written an inspiring 50 Reasons Why I'm A Vegetarian that provides insights into our collective thinking. As if weren't enough, Greg Caton wrote The Lumen Book in 1986 with over 240 pages and 300 scientific studies and resource sources to explain, among other things, why the movement towards meat abstention was so important and why the process technologies behind Lumen products were particularly valuable and useful to fulfilling this goal.


Do you ship internationally?
Yes, however, individual consumers may be surprised how high the cost of freight and/or mail delivery is if they are placing small orders. Frequently, the cost of postage exceeds the actually cost of the purchase. For this reason, we are always looking for foreign importers who will assist us in bringing out products into their country. Freight can only be minimized when you have economies of scale. As an example, we direct Canadian customers, who may not have a retail store in their area which carries our product, to contact LiteSource in Ajax, Ontario (the Toronto area). LiteSource will tell consumers which retail stores in their area carry our product, and if not how they can purchase the product in Canada via mail order.


Are you listed with Dun & Bradstreet, or other reputable credit agencies?
Actually Lumen Foods has favorable ratings with Dun & Bradstreet (where success is measured by having few or no complaints or actions by vendors, governmental authorities, or vexatious litigants), as well as all consumer credit reporting agencies. Our company has high ratings on both scorecards. Additionally, we offer a very liberal warranty to our consumer customers, as well as liberal terms with our distributors, wholesalers and retailers.
There are, of course, other credit reporting agencies, none of whom (to the best of our knowledge) is reporting adversely on our dealings with the public.