Sopp was born in Hamar as the son of tanner Johannes Bakke Olsen and Bertha Marie Omdahl.

[3] After examen artium in 1879 Olsen studied medicine at the Royal Frederick University of Kristiania, where he finished first part in 1882.

He designed the items required for production, and is credited for being the founder of industrial milk conservation in Norway.

The factory at Toten was taken over by the Swiss company Henri Nestlé in 1897, while Sopp continued as technical and scientific manager until he retired in 1925.

[1] Sopp was the first to suggest classifying fungi as belonging to neither plantae nor animalia, but to a third kingdom, already in his thesis Om sop paa levende jordbund from 1893,[2] and in a subsequent article in the periodical Nyt Tidsskrift.