No Evil Foods-- Union Busters

In a dimly lit room on a cold Asheville night in February, workers at vegan, plant-based, meat company No Evil Foods gathered around and listened to what would be the final mandatory anti-union speech from CEO Mike Woliansky. "I had one of our current investors say this week, I've seen hundreds of companies come across my desk, and I've never seen an investment in a unionized startup, especially not at this stage. If I was looking at this business for the first time I would run the other way."

Fears peddled by management about investors were a huge part of the reason why workers ended up voting the union down, but who exactly are these mysterious backers?

No Evil Foods has several investors, but one of their most important seems to be Blue Horizon, a firm that claims to be supporting, "game changers that are disrupting the largest market in the world: food." According to their website, Blue Horizon's goal is to help vegan companies stamp out factory farming, and overtake meat producers with plant-based products. On the surface, getting rid of the industries that routinely pollute waterways, torture animals, and subject workers to hellish conditions sounds like an honorable set of objectives. But how noble of a goal is this if the companies replacing meat packers remain more concerned about the bottom line than the workers who create all the wealth?

No Evil Foods co-founder, Sadrah Schadel, told the captive audience of workers that joining the United Food and Commercial Workers union would be joining a union that has members working in slaughterhouses, specifically Smithfield Foods, and she argued that if workers care about the company’s mission than they should should be appalled by the idea of being in such an organization.

Either Schadel was somehow impaired when taking the venture capitalists’ money or she is a hypocrite.

The backing of these investors was directly linked to increasing production to supply grocery stores nationwide, including Walmart, which is not only one of the largest meat and animal based product retails on the planet, but also a company that carries Smithfield products as well. Walmart is also known for abusing its workers in many ways, including forcing them to sign up for food stamps.

Like Blue Horizon, No Evil Foods bills itself as a "revolutionary" company, and yet their "do no harm" mentality stops where the needs of their venture capitalist investors begins.

In an interview for Capital at Play magazine, Schadel said, “Our seed round in 2018 was focused on finding a small group of like-minded, mission-oriented investors to help us fund both the new facility, as well as start building the team we needed to support our growth.”

Beyond connections with retailers such as Walmart, Blue Horizon, through its LiveKindly collective of plant-based brands, is linked to Cargill-- the largest producer of beef products in North America. Additionally, the CEO of LiveKindly, Kees Kruythoff, was previously the president of Unilever North America, a company made up of dozens of meat based brands (not to mention Axe body spray).

Makes you wonder what Schadel considers to be “like minded.”

Blue Horizon has also invested in plant-based manufacturer Hampton Creek, known best for their egg replacement and eggless mayo products. Hampton Creek has also been cited for workforce violations, many of which were the result of ramping up production following large influxes of venture capital. Employee whistleblowers at Hampton Creek, not unlike those from No Evil Foods, exposed machinery that could not safely handle the production demands and product being rushed to market.

So, unsurprisingly, when those investors shelled out their first major financing round to the tune of a modest $4.1 million in August of 2019, production floor workers at No Evil Foods felt the crunch.

Before August, "the bond between production workers on day shift was amazing," says a former No Evil Foods employee, who was employed at the time the union drive first started in the summer of 2019. This worker asked to remain anonymous fearing additional retribution. "We were hitting the highest numbers of units/cooks that we could have with the equipment we had and overall things felt so good."

But things quickly changed when the investor money started flowing: "Then we were given target goal numbers for each day, week, month. If we were lucky enough to reach those numbers, Mike [Woliansky] would greet us with a fucking cowbell at the monthly meetings as a celebration. It honestly felt embarrassing."

Schadel of course saw it differently. According to the Capital at Play article, Schadel said, “We’ve been focused on sustainable growth for a couple of years now, and that’s right in line with our mission statement. We want to build a company that not only produces food that is good for us and sustainable for the environment, but a company culture that is inherently good for our team, which includes our investors.”

Workers say they experienced something else.

"There were at least three different 'consultants' that would pop in on the floor and fuck shit up, time test certain areas, add logs for every possible thing, which really pissed off the crew that had been working there a while who felt that we didn't need outside help. There were whispers of wanting to unionize pretty early on due to lack of raises and the review structure, safety, communication breakdowns, and not having a voice to speak about these concerns."

Just a month later, the schedule switched from a four-day to a five-day workweek.

"Individuals met with Mike [Woliansky] and were told that if they missed two, maybe three Fridays, they would be terminated. That was the day I decided I was done and this wasn't the job or the company I wanted to support or represent."

In mid August, workers were also subjected to the first of what would eventually be many anti-union meetings. In fact, No Evil Foods kicked off the start of 2020 by plucking their workers off the production floor and shoving them into mandatory, anti-union meetings.

"We heard time and again pro-union workers being sworn at and talked over by management during the meetings, and then management would say those of us asking questions were the ones being hostile," another anonymous No Evil Foods worker told Industrial Worker back in March.

To this day Schadel and Woliansky continue to claim the union drive was a free and fair process, even though No Evil Foods hired a union busting law firm which directed management to use every textbook tactic for harassing workers into voting no. Even though a leaked audio compilation of mandatory anti-union meetings has made its way around the internet, neither Schadel or Woliansky have owned up to their own words.

Shortly after the union was voted down, employees responsible for creating a petition for guaranteed, immediate hazard pay were fired for bogus complaints such as dress code violations or failing to social distance. Since the union election concluded on February 13th, about one-third of the production staff eventually left either by their own recognizance or because they were culled in the witch-hunt. No Evil Foods management worked overtime to snuff out any signs of organizing efforts, all in an effort to satisfy their wealthy venture capitalist investors, not only at Blue Horizon, but also at Siddhi.

The person sitting at the top of Siddhi is Brian Finn, a man who boasts on his company profile about having "over 35 years of experience in financial service and private investments", mostly at Credit Suisse, a global wealth manager, investment bank and financial services company with a troubled history.

"They're a bunch of white people using a Sanskrit word as their name," another former worker told Industrial Worker regarding Siddhi. "That kind of appropriation is right up No Evil's alley."

In the early 1990s, Credit Suisse was targeted by divestment activists for its operations in apartheid-era South Africa. In 1998, the company agreed to pay $870,000 to settle SEC charges of having misled investors. Throughout the 2010s, Credit Suisse was slapped with even more fines for misbehavior over charges ranging from tax evasion to misleading investors.

Brian Finn himself also held a position on the board of Scotts Miracle Grow, the same company that used Monsanto's cancer-causing "Roundup" ingredient.

Siddhi also invests in a company called Somma Foods, an "ethical" producer of chicken and beef, which is interesting considering one of No Evil's arguments against unionizing with the UFCW was that it didn't want to be associated with a union that also represents workers at a meatpacking plant.

"It's greenwashing capitalism," another former worker said when asked for a comment about No Evil Food's investors. "These investors claim to have a progressive mindset but they only care about money - pumping money into businesses to make them more money. You can paint it like its a pretty picture of kind, wealthy people trying to make the world better with the money they have, but when you look deeper, a different picture is painted."

In a recent interview on the podcast Eat For The Planet, Schadel explained that the name “No Evil Foods” is aspirational, and really means that Schadel and Woliansky strive to “do better every day”. In that same interview, Schadel mentioned being fortunate to be able to offer jobs under the current economy but failed to mention it is because of the high rate of turnover.

When examining the activities and histories of No Evil's investors, the reason for branding as a "revolutionary" plant meat company becomes a little bit more clear. With a focus only on the bottom line, a penchant for union busting, and investors with questionable backgrounds, it should come as no surprise that they would want to hide behind the “world-changer” facade while effectively maintaining the status quo as much as possible.

As of the writing of this article, No Evil Foods remains without a living wage certification that they had so proudly touted throughout their union busting activities. The Industrial Worker continues to monitor for a decision from the National Labor Relations Board regarding two cases submitted by fired organizers.