The new Chief Executive Officer Peter McGuinness has reorganized its structure, leaving about 6% of its 800-person workforce as the maker of plant-based meats tries to position itself for faster growth.
In a memo to employees seen by Bloomberg, McGuinness said the reorganization has created clear supply- and demand functions, and is focused on research and development, without providing more details.
McGuinness said that we made the very difficult decision to eliminate certain roles that have become redundant to others in the organization or that are no longer aligned with our core business priorities. Affected workers were to be notified on Thursday.
The memo detailed the benefits to the severely employed, including at least 12 weeks of salary and an additional week for each year of tenure at Impossible. They will get a one-year extension for exercising stock options at the company, which is still closely held.
McGuinness said in the memo that as we continue to scale, we ll hire strategically to build new muscles and capabilities that will accelerate our growth.
McGuinness joined Impossible as CEO from Chobani Inc. in April, where he had been chief operating officer. That experience could help Impossible's efforts to expand its supermarket presence.
Although Impossible has said it is experiencing sales growth, the buzz around the plant-based meat sector has recently cooled due to the higher cost versus regular meat as consumers struggle with the highest inflation in decades. According to information from Information Resources Inc. or IRI, sales for the category have started to decline. Deloitte Consulting said that sales may be slowing because of market saturation. In the past few quarters, Beyond Meat Inc. has struggled.
McGuinness spoke to Bloomberg Television in September and said the company is working to add new points of distribution with restaurants and retailers. He added that consumers still have low awareness and low understanding of plant-based foods.
The category in and of itself has done a pretty lousy job of communicating it, and we haven't done a great job, McGuinness said.
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