The Truth Behind Impossible Foods Laying Off 6% Of Its Staff

Words like "efficiency" and "optimization" seem to be trending among big companies in the quick-service dining sphere. In September, Starbucks unveiled how it plans to "reinvent" itself by allocating $450 million to the "modernization" of its North American stores in order to "help streamline the work behind the counter." Just this week, Burger King retired the slogan it's had since 1974 as the latest step in a massive refresh plan, which will round out to a cool $400 million over the course of two years. 

Nowhere in either of those statements do the companies mention massive layoffs, but for plant-based patty purveyor Impossible Foods, future growth evidently means slimming down its workforce by 6%, says Food Dive. In the memo shared by Food Dive this week, CEO Peter McGuinness wrote that the company no longer has a use for employees whose roles "have become redundant to others in the organization or that are no longer aligned with our core business priorities."

Pre-pandemic, plant-based meat alternatives seemed to be carving out a bright future for themselves — one that promised to outshine their animal-product counterparts. When Burger King's Impossible Whopper hit stores nationwide in 2019, the burger chain saw a huge spike in demand for meat-free protein, which inspired a deluge of new and better-tasting options at the grocery store, per CNBC. And the plant-based division of Canadian brand Maple Leaf Foods grew by 59% that year and grew by 75% in 2020, Food & Wine reports. But in 2021, the Canadian brand's sales grew by a mere 1%. A report from the data company SPINS also found that plant-based meat sales in the U.S. overall had fallen year-to-year by 1.8% in 2021, per Vegconomist.

Many experts are hopeful for the future of the plant-based sector, but brands are still scrambling to rethink their business models. Food Dive notes that Beyond Meat and Maple Leaf Foods have both cut employees recently, while JBS USA pulled the plug on its plant-based line Planterra altogether this week, costing 121 employees their jobs. While Impossible Foods CEO Peter McGuinness told Bloomberg that the brand is back on the path to success, the memo sent to his laid-off employees reasoned that the company is trying to "continue to hyper grow" by focusing on efficiency.