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Precision fermentation food tech company Perfect Day has laid off approximately 15% of its workforce as it moves to exit its consumer-facing business The Urgent Company (TUC).
The move comes as Perfect Day plans to focus solely on its B2B ingredient sales and its precision fermentation business Nth Bio, rather than its consumer-facing brands. The TUC division houses four brands, its cream cheese brand Modern Kitchen, ice cream brand Brave Robot, whey protein brand California Performance Company, and its ice cream and frozen novelties brand Coolhaus.
Employees were informed of the layoffs in a letter sent at the beginning of July. The company’s president, Narayan Tripunithura Mahadeva, explained the decision in the letter, stating: “We [are] refocus[ing] all efforts on our founding principles of R&D innovation and the resulting B2B partnership opportunities from our investment into the technology we have been building over the past nine years. As part of this, we have to take the incredibly difficult step of parting ways with our talented B2C team members and reducing some Perfect Day positions to support this focused business.”
Speculations about changes started circulating within the company at the end of June after Alex Brittian, the head of Perfect Day’s consumer division for Asia and the US, was laid off.
The layoffs reportedly impacted a total of 134 employees globally, with 122 from the US and 12 from the UK and Asia.
In a statement a Perfect Day spokesperson told news outlet Nosh that it “will not be investing any more time or resources into brands,” and is “look[ing] for places where we can be opportunistic in offering partner products” to retailers.
“As you can imagine, the economic climate right now is different than it was even just two, three years ago. There’s just a different level of focus that investors are expecting with their capital. And for us, that has always been B2B. There’s not the luxury that there used to be to be able to expand and maximize opportunities in different adjacencies.”
Perfect Day says it aims to prevent disruptions in its retail services and sell through its existing inventory by retaining a small number of TUC employees as consultants. The company has also said it intends to sell all or part of TUC, with plans to fully exit all consumer-facing businesses by September.
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