- Meal-kit maker HelloFresh is laying off 611 workers and closing a Richmond, California, warehouse.
- It's one of two facilities that voted against unionizing in 2021.
The meal-kit maker HelloFresh is laying off over 600 employees and closing a facility in the Bay Area, according to California state records.
The company notified 611 workers at its Richmond, California, warehouse on October 10 that it plans to eliminate their roles as of December 11. HelloFresh notified the State of California under the requirements of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The layoffs are associated with the permanent closure of the facility, according to the notice.
The warehouse itself, located at 2041 Factory Street in Richmond, is currently listed for lease, according to PropertyShark.
"The lease for HelloFresh's production facility in Richmond is expiring at the beginning of 2023 and after an extensive analysis of our production network, HelloFresh has decided not to extend the lease," a spokesperson said in a statement to Insider. The company is focusing on "newer, more efficient sites," and "profitable growth through strategic investments in infrastructure, technology, and high-efficiency operations."
"The decision not to extend the lease is not a reflection of the local teams' performance, and we are grateful for their contributions," the spokesperson said about the layoffs.
The Richmond facility is one of two warehouses in the US where HelloFresh employees attempted to organize a union last year. The other warehouse that saw a union drive is in Aurora, Colorado.
Workers at both facilities voted against creating a union, the industry publication Food Dive reported in December.
Like many grocery-delivery players, HelloFresh saw sales rise in the early months of the pandemic. The company ships ingredients and recipes to customers, allowing them to prepare their own meals and hone their cooking skills.
HelloFresh has continued to grow sales in 2022 even as rivals such as Imperfect Foods saw their sales fade as pandemic restrictions lifted.
But HelloFresh's EBITDA fell nearly 23% in the six months through June 30, according to a recent earnings report. Shares of the Berlin-based company are down roughly 68% so far in 2022, falling farther than the broader market.
A rival meal-kit company, Blue Apron, has also seen its shares take a similar dive, falling 67% year-to-date.
Last year, HelloFresh started allowing customers to add other grocery items to their regular meal-kit deliveries. Uwe Voss, the US CEO of HelloFresh, told Insider at the time that the company was trying to capture a greater portion of consumers' overall grocery budgets — a tactic that often helps grocers improve their profitability.