Why are Women in the Natural Foods Industry Being Silenced?

So many women are being marginalized and traumatized

I am out of LinkedIn jail for now, after 4 days. The overlords claimed it was due to a couple of comments they didn’t like. I wrote about what happened here.

The experience got me thinking more broadly about how women in the natural foods industry and the vegan movement are having their voices silenced. It happens in many different ways, sometimes subtle, other times not so subtle.

Then right on time, an email landed in my inbox yesterday promoting yet another almost all white male panel in natural foods. Here is the promo text:

Compass Coffee Talk™ continues its series with a panel of leaders from Naturally Network, a collaborative community that advances and champions the wide-ranging ecosystem that makes up the natural and organic products industry.

Alongside Co-Host Steve Hoffman, Compass Coffee Talk Co-Host Bill Capsalis, Executive Director of Naturally Boulder, is joined by his Naturally Network colleagues:

• Eric Schnell - Co-Chair, Naturally New York & Founder, BeyondBrands

• Katrina Tolentino - Executive Director, Naturally Network

• Jim Slama - Managing Director and Co-Founder, Naturally Chicago

• Ari Raz - President and Board Member, Naturally San Diego

By my count this appears to be 5 white men out of 6 participants. So much to unpack here. The words that stand out to me are “leaders”, “collaborative community”, and “wide-ranging ecosystem.” Such a lack of diversity is hardly collaborative or wide-ranging.

When I privately asked one of the participates what’s going on, he “explained” that most of the chairs of the Naturally Network local chapters were men.

Oh. Well. Yes, that certainly would explain it wouldn’t it?

But he “reassured” me that the director of the national group was an Asian woman, as if that “made up” for the otherwise mostly homogeneous representation.

And this is not the first time I have seen an almost all white male panel from the “Naturally Network”. Back in April, I called out a panel called “State of Fundraising” posted to LinkedIn that was hosted by Naturally Austin. That count was also 5 white guys out of 6 panelists.

I will never understand how white men can agree to participate in panels like this. And if I were the token woman I would also refuse unless it changed.

But this is hardly the only way that women’s voices are being silenced in the natural foods industry. As I wrote about before, women are being marginalized all the time and in far more serious ways. Several themes emerge when I speak to women who are hurting, with some experiencing the aftermath of devastating trauma.

1. Work is being stolen. One woman I know started a brand, worked her butt of for ten years to make it a national success, only to have her company stolen from her by investors who pushed her out. This brand was started by a mother who was unhappy with the offerings on the market and wanted to create a cleaner product. Now, with her out of the way, the brand is already changing its formula to cheapen the product. And of course, the company is now led by a white man who knows nothing about food. At a non-profit organization, a narcissist swooped in, hijacked the organization, and pushed out the founder, using the board as pawns in his scheme. This is more common than you think.

2. Women are being demoted. In two companies I know of, the woman founder and CEO was demoted and replaced by white men. Even if this was the right decision for these particular women, being replaced by a man is a net negative for women leaders. And shame on these women if they had a say in who took their places. White women need to bring up other women.

3. Women are not getting credit. A woman helped a brand create an organic line to great success, only to be fired two months before she was vested in her stock. She experienced numerous forms of abuse. The good news is that she turned around and sued them and won. But she too was traumatized by the experience. Even if you "win" there is always a price to pay.

4. Women are getting randomly let go. A woman with decades of experience was fired by a crazy narcissist who just didn't like her. She is fighting to get just a few months of severance pay because she is worried that her age will make it difficult to get another job. She is right. Another young woman was so rattled by being suddenly getting laid off by the vegan non-profit organization, the Good Food Institute that she wrote about her traumatic experience.

Since I wrote about this problem in March, things have only gotten worse. A few more specific examples:

• A woman who was still recovering from being sexually harassed at a previous large natural food company was illegally terminated from her next job. She had requested and was denied accommodations for her mental health challenges.

• A very accomplished woman in sales is “too much” for her male colleagues so they are making her life miserable, threatening to hire over her in a way that is obviously meant to drive her out. It’s working, she is looking to leave.

• A woman founder and CEO of a well-known brand is experiencing extremely disrespectful treatment by her board.

• A woman who brought in massive amounts of funding to a non-profit is being so harassed by her board that she has no other choice but to leave.

• And of course there are the awful labor abuses happening at Amy’s Kitchen, which I wrote about for Forbes. (Not paywalled here.)

And these are only the situations that I happen to hear about. I shudder to imagine how many other stories are out there and how many women are suffering.

Most women are not telling their stories publicly for a variety of reasons. Some are legally bound, as I am, from telling their entire stories. Others are afraid of retaliation, and who can blame them?

I am calling on the white men of the natural foods industry and the vegan movement to take stock in how they are contributing to this massive problem. I will be writing more about what white men could be doing.