Influencers Built Up This Wellness Startup—Until They Started Getting Sick

One day last October, as chants of “Kale yeah, kale yeah!” and “Power to the parsnips!” echoed throughout a Connecticut campground, 100 or so Daily Harvest employees were indulging in some months-delayed corporate bonding. They were at Harfest, the vegan meal startup’s two-day retreat, where, along with talking business and playing games, there was a silent disco, s’mores with vegan marshmallows and a boozy superheroes-and-villains-themed party with a live band. The company’s chief executive officer, Rachel Drori, wore a green tutu, a yellow cape and a long-sleeved green shirt emblazoned with the letter “G,” reminiscent of the DC Comics superhero Green Lantern, except her “G” was surrounded with recycling arrows.

Like many things at Daily Harvest, the retreat appeared to have been designed with an eye toward social media. It had a hashtag (#harfest) and a logo (a bear roasting two marshmallows over a fire). And it got attention, though not the kind Drori probably intended. She’d postponed the festival’s original June date after the company recalled a product—little balls of plant protein called French Lentil + Leek Crumbles—that made some people so ill, more than 130 ended up in the hospital, and some 40 of them had to have their gallbladders removed.