A couple stories from yesterday:
Via Business Wire (a Berkshire Hathaway Company):
The World Economic Forum Awards Hampton Creek as Technology Pioneer
The world’s fastest growing food company, Hampton Creek, today was named a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, landing on a list of 49 of the most innovative companies in the world. Hampton Creek is the maker of the popular Just Mayo, Just Cookies and Just Cookie Dough products, which are sold throughout North America through retailers such as Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Target and numerous others....MORE
- World Economic Forum today announced its selection of the world’s 49 most promising Technology Pioneers 2015
- Fast-growing Hampton Creek, creators of Just Mayo and Just Cookies,
- The full list of recognized Technology Pioneers can be viewed here (Link active as of 5 August, 9:00AM CEST)
And from Business Insider Australia (a Henry Blodget publication):...Hampton Creek and the other Technology Pioneers were selected from among hundreds of applicants by a selection committee of 68 academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and corporate executives. Notable members of the committee include Arianna Huffington (founder, Huffington Post) and Henry Blodget (editor-in-chief, Business Insider). The committee based its decisions on criteria including innovation, potential impact, working prototype, viability and leadership....
Something is rotten at food startup Hampton Creek, former employees say
Something is rotten at Hampton Creek.
More than half a dozen former employees who spoke to Business Insider say that the company used shoddy science or ignored science completely, stretched the truth when labelling samples, and created an uncomfortable and unsafe work environment, partly in an effort to meet production deadlines.
These are bold claims levied at a startup with an equally bold vision to change the world.
We described the claims in this story in detail to Hampton Creek executives and Hampton Creek’s CEO Josh Tetrick. Everyone declined to comment on the record.
A vision to change the world San Francisco-based Hampton Creek has said it’s on a mission to change food by eliminating animal products. Part of that mission is making the egg obsolete by replacing it with plants.
The company’s CEO, Josh Tetrick, is a vegan who grew up in Alabama before he went to West Virginia University to play football. After he switched schools and graduated from Cornell, he spent seven years working for nonprofits in sub-Saharan Africa. He first launched 33Needs, a crowd-funding website, before he teamed up with his childhood friend, Josh Balk, who works at the Humane Society of the United States, to find a way to reduce dependency on animal products.
The three-and-a-half year old startup already has a popular line of egg-less mayo, called “Just Mayo,” in stores from Costco to Walmart. This product also recently replaced all of the mayo used in 7-Elevens. Hampton Creek is also working on cookie dough, pancake batter, and a complete egg replacement.
All of these products use plants to replace the eggs. In the mayo products, it’s a yellow pea protein. In the cookies, it’s sorghum.
The startup has raised more than $US120 million, according to CrunchBase, including investments from Asia’s richest man, Li-Ka Shing. Bill Gates, an indirect investor, singled it out as a company shaping the future of food.
Hampton Creek’s other investors are big names in Silicon Valley, too. Hampton Creek has investments from Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff just to name a few.
From the outside, all looks well. But based on the accounts of some former employees, the reality at Hampton Creek is different.
Business Insider was first alerted to a problem by some reviews on Glassdoor, an anonymous company review website. The reviews were salacious, and the company earned a score of 2.2 out of 5 on July 7. (After we started reporting this story, the reviews on Glassdoor suddenly became more positive. 19 of the 44 reviews on Glassdoor came after July 7, and the score has jumped to 3.2 out of 5.)
The complaints weren’t just online musings. We spoke to more than half a dozen former employees who told us stories about questionable science, slippery ethics, and a tough work environment. None of the former employees wanted to be named in this article — some signed severance agreements, others were concerned about repercussions throughout the industry.
Not much science Several former employees told us Hampton Creek is not employing nearly as much science as it says it does.
Many Silicon Valley startups exaggerate about how advanced their technology is, the properties of their products, and other metrics. But many former Hampton Creek employees say the company pushed them beyond their ethical comfort levels.
One former employee called it a “food company masquerading as a tech company.”...MUCH MORE
