The new owner of distressed alt meat firm Meati Holdings issued a press release describing the company’s plant in Thornton, Colorado, as “unprofitable and unsustainable” but insisted the brand was “poised for growth,” prompting a furious response from some former employees.
The release, which was issued three days after AgFunderNews revealed that the firm had laid off most of its staff, did not reference the layoffs but said Meati Holdings’ “initial goal is to stabilize operations.”
In the release, entitled “Meati Holdings Implements Strategic Corporate Restructuring To Poise The Meati Foods Brand For Success,” new owner Yasir Abdul, CEO of infomercial company InvenTel, is described as “a visionary who saw the acquisition to fruition and as an opportunity to make the brand a leader in the clean food space.”
It goes on to criticize Meati’s former executive team, which it claimed had “failed to meet revenue and margin targets, notwithstanding reporting a near doubling of revenue and more than 100% distribution expansion before the Meati Holdings, Inc. acquisition.”
It added: “Unfortunately when startups and founders build a brand they have tunnel vision. Often they do not understand the numbers, the revenue, or the gross profit. Meati is now poised for growth.”
Abdul has been looking into other options for getting its products to market including a direct-to-consumer business model, said the release: “As Seen On TV products are available in all major retailers across the world, so we plan on leveraging our existing retail relationships to expand the distribution for Meati.”
Renee Towell, who is listed as a contact for Meati Holdings, did not respond to questions from AgFunderNews. Abdul—who acquired Meati through the Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC) process via a vehicle called Meati Holdings—has not responded to emails.
Staff told layoffs were ‘result of financial holds on company accounts’
Multiple sources spoke with us on Monday to describe several weeks of payroll glitches at the company, On Tuesday an undisclosed number of employees received a letter terminating their employment.
This explained that “As a result of ongoing financial challenges and efforts to stabilize the business, Meati Foods must reduce its workforce at the Thornton facility, and unfortunately, your position has been impacted. This action is the result of financial holds on company accounts and the need to stabilize operations.”
Meati employed 150 people at the start of the year but has since seen that number slide from layoffs and attrition, said one staff member that was laid off this week. “We never got an answer on the [reason for] the financial holds [on the company accounts].”
Another added: “I heard the plant manager and HR director will remain on for now and maybe a maintenance person or so, but all our food and fermentation workers were let go including the quality team, R&D, controls, fermentation scientists and lab workers.”
Management had been exploring outsourcing production given the high costs of running the submerged fermentation facility in Thornton. However, this could be challenging, said one former employee: “The tech is pretty unique and won’t transfer easily.”
Another said: “I think it’s an absurd press release and probably only exists to soothe Yasir’s ego.”
A colleague added: “That press release is a complete joke. None of it reflects what’s actually happening here. They can call it a ‘strategic restructuring’ but the truth is every one of us got laid off because their accounts were frozen. There’s no plan, no pivot, no success story—just a shutdown and silence. Final wages and PTO are still unpaid and the facility is locked and dead quiet.
“They’re spinning this like some growth story when it’s really just collapse. They ran out of money and left people hanging without pay.”
‘Overly exuberant goals’
Meati—which makes mycelium-based whole cuts via submerged fermentation—was founded in 2015 as Emergy by engineers Dr. Justin Whiteley and Dr. Tyler Huggins, raising more than $450 million from backers including Grosvenor Food & AgTech and Prelude Ventures.
Whiteley stepped down as CSO and CTO in early 2024 but worked with the company in an advisory capacity until April 2025. Huggins stepped down as CEO in late 2021 and was replaced by CPG veteran Scott Tassani, who raised eyebrows in 2023 after predicting Meati would generate $1 billion in retail sales in five years.
In early 2024, Tassani was replaced by former Patagonia executive Phil Graves, who acknowledged that the firm had “put some overly exuberant goals out there” and was resetting goals that were “grounded in reality.”
Speaking to AgFunderNews in September 2024, Graves said: “We had raised a large amount of capital and brought in a lot of uncommonly talented individuals, but ultimately, we were overstaffed and we were very siloed. Instead of behaving like a scrappy startup, we were operating more like a big CPG.”
According to some sources at the firm, things were looking up at the beginning of 2025, but went spiraling downhill in late February when Meati breached a financial covenant tied to revenue and gross profit and lender Trinity Capital swept two-thirds of its available cash, described by one source as a “gut wrenching” bank-induced crisis.
It was then forced to issue a WARN notice to staff in March explaining that production would cease on May 6 unless it could secure additional funds.
Earlier this year, Emergy Inc (doing business as Meati Foods) filed an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC) agreement with the Adams County District Court (case 2025-CV-030671). The ABC process serves as an alternative to bankruptcy, whereby a financially distressed company transfers its assets to a third-party (in this case an attorney called Aaron Garber) who handles the sale of the assets/business in the best interests of creditors.
During that process, Yasir Abdul acquired the company for a reported $4 million, although we were told by alt protein investor Ryan Bethencourt in June (who was assisting with the transition) that this figure was “not accurate.”
Further reading:
Exclusive: Mass layoffs at Meati after weeks of payroll glitches
Infomercial exec Yasir Abdul emerges as prospective buyer for Meati as firm navigates ABC process
Breaking: Meati plans “gut-wrenching” mass layoffs amid “bank-induced crisis”
Meati expands distribution, anticipates positive gross margins by the year end, says CEO
