I too really wanted to love working at Fresh.Land. as stated in many of the other reviews it seemed perfect: 1) strong purpose, 2) engaged and experienced management team, 3) interesting work and 4) rapid growth. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that:
1. The alleged green and social sustainability purpose is greatly exaggerated.
2. The engaged and experienced management team has no real agency due to micromanagement and mistrust.
3. Any joy from interesting tasks is killed by a toxic company culture.
4. The rapid growth is real, but unsustainable due to the founders’ complete lack of empathy, sense of reality and leadership skills.
Trickling down from the founders, the culture in Fresh.Land is ruthless, no-mistakes allowed micromanagement and dread, manipulating and exploiting farmers, employees and partners as much as possible to succeed in making a profit. Multiple employees try to speak up, but with little effect.
Employees are cognizant that farmers and suppliers are paid pretty much the same, if not a little less, as in the rest of the industry and hardly ever on time, despite the core story told by the founders about how more money is funneled to suppliers by cutting intermediaries and shortening the food supply chain.
Among employees, the appraised tech platform is known to be less of a platform and more of a spreadsheet system with little automation and sparse potential for scalability. I trust potential investors to do the necessary due diligence to see through the Silicon Valley buzzwords and realize that Fresh.Land is not yet a tech company, despite what the founders claim, and hence should not get a valuation/investment as such.
In marketing and operations, employees are frustrated that untrue stories about how the company is cutting 88% of CO2 through its B2C deliveries are being emphasized publicly again and again by the founders. It sounds great, and media and trade association are quick to quote and share, but the true story behind that number shows how delusional the founders have become about their own business and its place and impact in the World.
The number comes from WWF’s calculation that states that the Fresh.Land model can save 88 percent CO2 on cold storage. Cold storage only adds up to a small part of the supply chain. Stating that the model cuts 88 percent CO2 is simply not backed by the WWF calculation.
Furthermore, the calculation is from 2016 and based on a B2B business model. Thereby the premise of the calculation is not a representation of the current situation - Fresh.Land changed from a B2B to a B2C business model in 2019.
Finally, the founders keep citing a source of confidence (WWF) that must no longer be cited, thus further misleading consumers. These points have been presented to the founders multiple times by employees but those who speak up tend to fall into disfavor with the founders and as a consequence everyone has learned to remain silent.
One of the previous reviews on this site state that all positive descriptions are left by the founders themselves. To support this point, I recently found that four 5-star reviews left within a couple of days in late April had been removed from Glassdoor. More overly positive 5-star reviews have since appeared. On ‘cons’ in one of the positive reviews still on Glassdoor it is stated that “lunch arrangement at the moment is boring. Luckily Fresh.Land soon opens its own cafe and flagship store with plant-based menu.” – Seriously, who would write this under cons? Sounds like a founder designing reality.
