Startup backed by Vance had ‘nightmare’ conditions with workers toiling in 128-degree heat, ex-employees say

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Former employees of an indoor farming startup, backed by Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, have described appalling working conditions at the company, with staff toiling in triple-digit heat.

Vance was a board member, early investor, and public advocate of AppHarvest, a tech-infused farming operation in eastern Kentucky, according to CNN.

Founder Jonathan Webb wanted to create an indoor farming hub to grow fruits and vegetables, in a region with plenty of water and land available, within a day’s drive of most of the US population.

Vance called the company a “good investment” on Fox Business when it went public in February 2021, and lauded it for “making a big difference in the world.”

The company declared bankruptcy in 2023 as it faced debts of hundreds of millions of dollars.

While Vance has portrayed himself as a champion of the working class, a dozen former AppHarvest workers told CNN that the company was an awful place to work at times.

They said that conditions inside the company’s greenhouse were brutal, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Complaints were filed with the Department of Labor and a state regulator between 2020 and 2023 stating that workers were not given sufficient water breaks or proper safety equipment.

Documents reveal that state government inspectors visited the site on at least three occasions but issued no citations. However, some staff said they experienced heat exhaustion or injuries.

Several former staffers told CNN that while the company made promises of creating local jobs, they soon started hiring migrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala.

Crop care specialist Shelby Hester told CNN that when Kentucky’s Republican Senator Mitch McConnell toured the greenhouse in November 2021, “they sent every single Hispanic worker home before he got there.”

“He then proceeded to have a speech about how we were taking the jobs from the Mexicans,” she added.

Anthony Morgan, who also picked vegetables, took a pay cut to join AppHarvest, after being attracted by its healthcare benefits and supposed commitment to Appalachia, he said.

After a good start, there was a major shift in company culture, with longer hours, fewer breaks in the grueling heat, and benefits being cut back, he added.

“I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees,” Morgan told CNN. “A couple days a week, you’d have an ambulance show up and you seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.”

He added: “It was a nightmare that should have never happened.”

As the conditions worsened, employees began to leave the company, Morgan added, saying that he was fired after taking medical leave for a workplace injury.

Hester also told CNN: “I had to bring in my own N95 masks because I was getting sick from the amount of mold and just nasty stuff that was in there.”

Hester said heat stroke was a common problem for workers. A doctor’s note was not enough to not show up for a shift, managers told staff.

The Independent has contacted AppHarvest’s founder Jonathan Webb for comment.

A Vance spokesperson, Luke Schroeder, told The Independent that “JD was not aware of the operational decisions regarding hiring, employee benefits, or other workplace policies which were made after he departed AppHarvest’s board.”

He added: “Like all early supporters, JD believed in AppHarvest’s mission and wishes the company would have succeeded.”

AppHarvest’s chief restructuring officer, Gary Broadbent, told CNN: “AppHarvest has no continuing operations and is not in a position to respond.”

The Vance spokesperson shared a statement from a member of AppHarvest’s senior management team, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential exchanges.

The senior manager said, “The allegations made against AppHarvest do not reflect matters discussed at board meetings during JD’s tenure — for obvious reasons. AppHarvest implemented robust heat policies when temperatures rose in the summer, months after JD’s departure, continued to cover 100 percent of employees’ health insurance premiums until mid-2022, and maintained a workforce dedicated to Appalachia throughout its existence.”

Vance left the AppHarvest board in 2021 to run for Senate in Ohio but remained an investor. In early 2023, the company was hit with lawsuits from shareholders who were furious at the decreasing stock price and fraud claims.

Former staff told CNN that they think Vance and fellow board members should have recognized and responded to warning signs that the company was misleading investors as well as the public.

Morgan said Vance’s promotion of the company was a familiar situation in Kentucky.

“Eastern Kentucky is well-known for people coming and going. They start up companies, then they disappear,” Morgan said. “They didn’t care about us.”

Webb told Fox News in 2022 that he and Vance met after the senator joined the seed fund, Rise of the Rest, run by AOL co-founder Steve Case.

Webb had drained his savings and maxed out his credit cards running the business but managed to convince Vance to invest $150,000, he said.

Vance joined the board of directors in March 2017, according to his financial disclosure filings after he became a Senate candidate in 2022. AppHarvest’s security filings say Vance joined the board in 2020.

Vance established his venture capitalist firm, Narya, in Ohio in early 2020 and made one of its first public investments in AppHarvest. Vance had helped the company attract millions of dollars within a few years, according to CNN.

When AppHarvest went public in February 2021, its shares skyrocketed and it was valued at more than $1bn. But the firm lost more than three-quarters of its value in the first six months as a public entity.

Vance left the board in April 2021 to focus on his Senate campaign. Disclosures show that he had more than $100,000 invested in the company at the time and Narya continued to publically back the company, CNN reported.

AppHarvest filed for bankruptcy last year with more than $341m debt.