Numerous redundancies "Culture of fear" and "total chaos" - employees sharply criticize vegan company
The meat substitute manufacturer Planted has reduced its workforce in recent months. The number of departures has increased, particularly at management level. The company is talking about increasing efficiency.
21.04.2026, 13:41
SDA
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- At the ETH spin-off Planted, former employees report redundancies, a bad atmosphere and a "culture of fear".
- The company has cut numerous jobs in recent years and justifies this with a strategic realignment following strong growth.
- At the same time, the manufacturer of meat substitutes is under economic and political pressure, while the vegan boom is losing momentum.
"Rarely experienced anything like this," writes one person on the Kununu review platform. She was employed at the ETH spin-off Planted until 2025. Employees are told about colleagues who have left in the quarterly update.
Other former employees also report "regular waves of redundancies". They are calling for the strategy to be reconsidered "so that people who have only recently been hired don't have to be made redundant all the time".
There is now "a culture of fear". Others speak of "total chaos", a "bad mood" and a "bad financial situation".
Experienced employees replaced
Several managers have left the company in the past nine months. These include the former Head of Communications, the Head of Sustainability, the Head of Quality, the Head of Marketing Switzerland and the Head of Swiss Production, as LinkedIn profiles show.
According to former employees, this is no coincidence: "Due to cost pressure, many experienced employees were replaced by young, inexperienced ones or not replaced at all," says one person, who wishes to remain anonymous, to the news agency AWP. One of the reasons for this is the high cost of a new factory in Germany, which was opened last year.
The situation of the employees was also recently criticized by the trade union newspaper "Work". According to the paper, Planted rejected an offer from Unia for a social partnership. The management had "no interest in a dialog".
According to the newspaper, Planted currently employs around 150 people, 46 of whom work in production. At the end of 2025, the company said it still had 200 employees - and by mid-2023, this figure had risen to around 240. This means that around 90 jobs have been lost over the last few years. The company has never reported any mass redundancies (10 percent or more of the workforce).
Structures reviewed
"After several years of very rapid growth, we systematically developed our organization further last year and adapted it to the next phase," says a spokeswoman on request. Structures were reviewed and priorities sharpened.
"This also included personnel decisions that were not always easy for us," emphasized the spokesperson. The company is now "more efficient" and well positioned for sustainable growth. Demand for vegan products also remains strong.
The founding of Planted was a success story: the company launched in 2019 with a focus on vegan meat alternatives - and jumped on the bandwagon. The start-up raised a total of around 115 million francs. Its backers include entrepreneur Stephan Schmidheiny, Swiss national team goalie Yann Sommer and US investor L Catterton.
Recently, however, the veggie hype has flattened out again. According to industry observers, demand in restaurants is trending downwards, while business in the retail trade is characterized by margin pressure and cut-throat competition. Planted distributors Coop and Migros, for example, also have their own, cheaper meat substitutes in their range. According to experts, the market is in a consolidation phase.
Political headwinds
There is also political headwind: last May, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that purely plant-based substitute products may not be advertised with animal names such as "chicken" - Planted had to adapt its packaging as a result.
Planted has been producing in Kemptthal, Zurich, since 2021. In June 2025, a second factory was opened in Memmingen, Bavaria. This should double production capacity and create over 50 new jobs. According to the spokesperson, the majority of employees are still based in Switzerland.
Half of the company's turnover is generated in the retail trade and the other half in restaurants. The products are available in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France and the UK.
