Outside Edesia’s North Kingstown headquarters, bulldozers are busy digging the foundation for a giant new warehouse to store the company’s product: Plumpy’Nut, a life-saving fortified peanut butter to feed malnourished children around the world.
The construction project planned long before the abrupt gutting of USAID, is funded by private donors. The Bezos family gave $137 million because they believe in Edesia’s work.
But the workers inside the factory are struggling to fulfill their mission.
Last year, USAID accounted for 85% of Edesia’s business. The nutrition program was one of the few that survived recent cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency. But, in the short term, the cuts have meant anything but efficiency.
“It takes a lot of energy just to understand what’s going on,” said Edesia’s founder and CEO Navyn Salem.
Meanwhile, the product is piling up. Right now, Edesia has stockpiled enough to feed 230,000 starving children in Somalia and Sudan, only to discover that the funding for transporting the product has moved from USAID to the State Department.
“It is like a constant treasure hunt to figure out how to do our work every day,” Salem posted in a LinkedIn update.
USAID still owes the company millions of dollars for work completed last October. With only about 700 workers still on the payroll, the agency has been slow to process invoices. Many of the remaining USAID workers will be let go later this month, leaving Edesia scrambling to get its bills paid.
The State Department is due to absorb what’s left of the agency July 1. They have until April 15 to disclose their plans to restructure USAID. So far, no news on that front. Nobody knows who the decision-makers will be.
“If anyone works at the State Department and wants to reach out, that would be amazing!” Salem said.
She has laid off 10% of Edesia’s staff, dipped into savings to keep afloat, and launched an emergency $3.5 million dollar fundraising campaign over the next six weeks. Meanwhile, it’s not just Edesia feeling the pinch. Ditto farmers and truck drivers in 27 states. The whole supply chain is feeling the strain.
Eventually, she said, the government will face a choice.
“We‘ll have to decide whether to take the taxpayer dollars that have been appropriated and drive them to a landfill or drive them to war-torn Sudan,” she said. “I would imagine that everyone would be on board with driving them to Sudan.”
Salem said she’s confident lawmakers will make the right choice in the end.
“This is one of the most bipartisan issues that exists,” she said. “There are very few people who do not believe in feeding children.”
Asked how long Edesia can survive in this state of limbo, Salem thought for a long minute.
“About three or four months,” she said. “Then we’re going to need some answers.”
