Seth Tibbott, founder of Turtle Island Foods of Hood, Ore., told The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) the company expects this year's holiday sales to hit 270,000. So far this year, Tofurky sales are up 37 percent over last year.

Tofurky has been given a boost from television, getting mentions on shows ranging from "The X-Files" to "Jeopardy," where none of the contestants got it as the answer.

"It's a name that resonates with consumers," Tibbott, who grew up in Chevy Chase, Md. "We're fine with the fact they think it's funny or they get a smile out of it. You remember jokes."

Tofurky is no longer Turtle Island's biggest seller. But it helped turn the company from a hippie enterprise, financed by Tibbott and his immediate family, into a company with $11 million in sales. When Tibbott invented the soy-based entree in 1986, he was living in a tree house in Washington State because he could not afford anything else.