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The city of Gresham, Oregon, is the state’s fourth-largest, and that’s amazing when you consider than it did not become a city until 1905. But that’s not the only offbeat fact that Gresham residents can brag about.

Greshman is also the birthplace of the world’s most popular meatless burger — and possibly is where the mainstream vegetarian movement all started.

It began through a fortunate combination of necessity, inspiration, and recycling. In 1981, Paul Wenner was hard at work at his Gresham vegetarian restaurant, The Gardenhouse. He found that the restaurant had a lot of leftover rice pilaf. Being a thrifty restaurateur, he decided to fashion a sort of veggie loaf from the rice, also throwing in vegetables, mushrooms, low-fat cheese and oats.

The next day, he sliced up the loaf and grilled it, placing the patties on hamburger buns — and thus the Gardenburger came into being. The veggie patty was an immediate hit with his customers and soon accounted for almost half of all lunch orders.

Wenner, who had long advocated a vegetarian diet for good health, seized the opportunity to tutor the public in better eating habits, and began looking for a way to bring his Gardenburger to more people. He began selling Gardenburgers at festival food stands and delis, and then marketed his patty to other restaurants.

He found financial backing and founded Wholesome & Hearty Foods in the mid-1980s — the company name was later changed to Gardenburger Inc. — and added other vegetarian options such as non-meat “riblets,” “wings” and “meatballs.” He invented 28 different vegetarian products and also wrote a cookbook, “Garden Cuisine.”

Wholesome & Hearty Foods’ manufacturing expanded so that Gardenburgers could also be sold in retail grocery stores, and today Gardenburger products are a staple of supermarkets’ vegetarian offerings for home consumers.

In 2007, Kellogg’s purchased the Gardenburger company and has continued to expand the product line, with five types of veggie burgers now available. Kellogg’s also owns another vegetarian brand, Morningstar Farms. Wenner continues to serve as a consultant for Kellogg’s.

More than 4 billion Gardenburgers have been sold since Wenner dished up the recipe at his restaurant, and today they are served at tens of thousands of restaurants and food service operations throughout the world.

The environmentally-conscious Wenner is also proud that he has helped lessen the world’s carbon load by giving people an alternative to meat products, saving billions of tons of carbon monoxide that otherwise would have gone into the earth’s atmosphere from meat production.
Having the inspiration to attain your goals is important, but developing the skills that are needed to succeed is a vital role for Gresham tutors, who can help set students on a path of academic achievement.