3y
We continue to strive to make the best plant-based foods on the planet. Our recent successes have resulted in much interest: our products have won accolades from famous chefs and will be launched in Michelin star rated restaurants next month. We were recently awarded “Best New Product” by VegNews, and have raised a record breaking seed round from some of the most sophisticated and mission driven tech investors on the planet. This 1-star review and a few others were all posted in March 2023 seemingly in response to our successes, but we’re glad that folks are paying attention!
While constructive feedback is always welcome, we don’t have time to address every false claim in this clearly orchestrated wave of biased reviews. Instead, we are laser focused on building a food system that is more just and sustainable, and we continuously strive to improve our internal teams’ processes and procedures.
We also continue to grow rapidly, as we grew throughout the pandemic and a tight economy. If you’d like to grow with us, or have questions or concerns, we’re delighted to answer them at our website contact info. You can also directly reach out to anyone on our team by contacting them on LinkedIn!
The claim about a string of departures is misleading, as anyone can easily verify on LinkedIn. As one of the largest seed stage food tech stage startup, we are in the fortunate position to be able to continue to grow and build our leadership suite despite the economic conditions (and with the recent influx of rockstar applications are excited to make several additional hires soon). Because of our revolutionary products and IP, we have continued to raise money during the economic downturn last year and were able to avoid layoffs altogether.
The claim of unreasonable work hours is misleading. Mission-driven startups building important, positive technologies generally require more effort than conventional, larger companies. Like many companies do - startups or established- we ask our employees to be on-site for 9 hours per day, allowing time for a lunch break, with exceptions made, for example, for parents of young children.
Our compensation package is competitive and ranks in the top 5% of seed-stage startups per the Pave and Option Impact databases (https://www.pave.com/, https://www.optionimpact.com), which is why we’ve been able to attract and hire the best talent.
The OHSA fine allegation is demonstrably false, as anyone can confirm by viewing the public record. We continuously work with CalOSHA to ensure our facilities meet the highest safety standards. The innovative nature of our approach to food-science blurs the line between traditional biochemistry labs and kitchen work. OSHA is helping us understand how best to manage our mixed purpose lab. We welcome their help and input because we take the safety and well-being of our employees very seriously.
We continue to improve our organization and hire effective leaders and we offer many internal channels to escalate concerns and are always open to hearing feedback internally to effectively resolve any issues.
