Union Kitchen Lays Off Workers
After announcing the launch of a new investment fund in May 2022, Washington, D.C.-based Union Kitchen has laid off members of its sales and marketing team as part of a corporate reorganization, former employees posted to LinkedIn.
Last week, three Union Kitchen sales and marketing team members – inbound and marketing manager Brandt Gehrs, director of revenue Andrea Chan and marketing and inbound associate Nora Boyle – posted on LinkedIn that their positions had been eliminated. Two of the three impacted team members, Gehrs and Boyle, had been with the company for less than a year according to their published work history.
“Today I found out that myself, along with my outstanding teammates Andrea Chan and Nora Boyle comprising the entire marketing/sales department at Union Kitchen, were being laid off,” Gehrs wrote. “This is despite our team providing some of the most successful months the company has ever seen in terms of sales and accelerator partnerships.”
On her page, Chan posted that over the course of 2022 Boyle, Gehrs and herself “recruited the most accelerator members in the history of the company and showed positive trends in year-over-year sales growth.”
In an email statement, Union Kitchen CEO and founder Cullen Gillcrest confirmed the job cuts but did not provide details as to the total number of impacted employees or how company operations may be affected.
“Union Kitchen completed a reorganization of our team in order to better align our efforts to our mission and to more fully support the growth of successful food and beverage businesses,” Gilcrest said.
Per Linkedin, Union Kitchen has 70 current employees, the majority of which work at the company’s six retail stores.
Founded in 2012 as a shared kitchen space, Union Kitchen subsequently launched an accelerator for food and beverage brands. Though it did not invest directly in participating companies, as of 2019 Union Kitchen reportedly asked for 10% equity in each business as well as a board seat.
Along with announcing a new 25,000 square foot production and distribution center, last May the company announced it had closed $10 million of a $20 million fund to invest in accelerator companies as well as brands within the wider District of Columbia CPG community. Union Kitchen VP Elena Rosenblum told NOSH last year that the company planned to make 15 investments by the end of 2025.
Over the past year employees across the six Union Kitchen stores voted to unionize, galvanized in part by issues surrounding personnel and wages. In addition to pay cuts and a grievance regarding how tips were paid out, employees reportedly accused management of racially profiling shoppers and discriminating against female employees on the basis of their gender. Team members also accused Gilchrist of engaging in union busting tactics, including firing several union supporters.
Impacted employees declined to comment for this story or did not reply as of press time.
