Company founder, Klaus Gaiser
Our headquarters in Mössingen
Our founder Klaus Gaiser has four decades of experience in making organic and vegan food. In the 1970s, he had the opportunity to learn Asia's vegetarian cuisine during a number of stays there - among others in the kitchen of a Zen temple in Japan, and with an old Tofu master.
Back in Germany, he started in 1981 as one of the first tofumakers in the country, making tofu from locally sourced soybeans. 1993 he started TOPAS, dedicated to products based on wheat gluten.
products based on wheat gluten. This type of food, called Seitan, has a centuries-old tradition in Asia, not unlike Tofu. Klaus Gaiser took this tradition and reinvented it for western tastes, becoming the inventor of the wheat-based vegan sausage in the process.
Together with his Finnish wife, Sanni Ikola-Gaiser, this vegan and organic pioneer has built a family business that, still headquartered in Mössingen in southern Germany, today operates in all of Europe. Their five children also work in the business in various roles.