When you think of mayonnaise, do you normally think of drama and corporate intrigue? That’s been the history of plant-based food company Hampton Creek, a company whose first product was the eggless Just Mayo. After issues with Unilever and the Food and Drug Administration over the definition of the word “mayo,” the company’s entire board has quit, reportedly over disagreements with the CEO.
Trouble in Eggless Mayo Town
Even once the company won the dispute over the meaning of the word “mayo,” it kept finding controversy. It was accused of using a field rep program shortly after the Just Mayo launch to buy up jars of the product and artificially inflate sales.
More recently, Target pulled the company’s products from shelves after unspecified allegations of food safety problems.
Boardroom Strife
While sources whispered to Bloomberg News that the entire board of directors have left over clashes with CEO Josh Tetrick, he framed the move as giving more power to employees to fulfill their mission. Or something.
“Ensuring our employees maintain their ability to direct our mission is as critical as the technologies we deploy and the products we launch,” he said in a statement to Bloomberg. The company’s structure gives disproportionate voting power to Tetrick, who can outvote the rest of the board if he believes that it’s necessary.
Former board members issued a collective statement saying that they “will advise Josh and the team on strategies across all areas of its business moving forward.”
Three top executives at the company were fired in May, and about a dozen top leaders have left the company in the last year, Bloomberg reports, which the company attributes to a combination of cost-cutting and under-performance on the executives’ part.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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