Thanks to All Food Industry Workers

I found this article I wrote around Thanksgiving in 2012 (on my archived website) called “Did You Eat Today? Thank a Food Worker”. Ten years later, it’s as relevant as ever. From the article:

The most under-reported  and neglected aspect of the good food movement is the 20 million workers who toil every day—often under inhumane conditions—harvesting fields, killing and cutting up animals, packing boxes, driving trucks, cooking meals, ringing up orders, serving tables, and cleaning up the mess. While foodies debate the merits of buying heritage turkeys versus going meatless for Thanksgiving, millions of food workers are struggling to eat at all.

In recent years, I have turned my attention toward the natural foods sector, where it seems things aren’t much better. As I wrote in August, workers at the vegetarian food company, Amy’s Kitchen are fighting for humane treatment:

Over the last few months, workers at organic food giant Amy’s Kitchen have been publicly complaining about unsafe conditions at the plant, resulting in a series of negative media reports about a company that has long been the darling of both the organic and vegetarian food sectors.

For many companies like Amy’s, a “halo effect” can result, where the assumption is that a company espousing values related to sustainability and says you can “taste the love” in how their products are made, must also treat their workers well.

But sourcing more sustainable ingredients or not using animal ingredients does not necessarily mean a food company is good to its workers. That is certainly the case for workers at Beyond Meat, which I also wrote about recently. The company laid off 200 employees while its top executives make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What I left out of that article was that several employees (who did not want to be named) told me they were laid off in a very cruel manner. They were told to go home without any explanation. Here is how one worker described it:

Around 1:30 we were all told to leave the building at 2pm. We then got an email that everyone will be working from home the following day. That evening 50 percent of us [from one department] got an email for a “check-up”, 15 minute one-on-one meeting, during which we were laid off. The day we found out was our last day. If we left anything personal at the office, they would send it to us.

Others confirmed this account, and also told me the next day Beyond Meat held a “moment of silence” on behalf of the laid off workers. This is just sick and cruel.

This Thanksgiving, I will be thinking of the laid off employees at Beyond Meat, of the exploited workers at Amy’s Kitchen, and of all food workers everywhere who work so hard to grow, prepare, ship, and sell us the foods we enjoy this holiday and every day.