employee-owned company
Bob's Red Mill
Industry Food
An employee-owned food company selling grains, flours, cereals, and baking staples through an ESOP structure and broad grocery distribution. Bob's Red Mill scores well because ownership is comparatively aligned and the model leaves more value with stakeholders, and no current penalty outweighs that structure.
Why this matters: ESOP ownership structurally shares wealth with workers, but it is not the same as direct workplace democracy.
Letter grade B Qualified Medium confidence (AI) Rubric gcd-rubric-v1
Final Score
45* B - Qualified
B* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.
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Evaluation Overview
B - Qualified
The score turns mainly on Ownership, with the largest penalty coming from High-Carbon Products.
Strengths
- Ownership8/10
- Extraction7/10
- Governance5/10
Penalties
- High-Carbon Products-2
Evidence state
- ConfidenceMedium confidence (AI)
- ThoroughnessPartial (AI)
- Linked claims11
- Direct axis claims10
- Coverage10/10
Scoring Axes
| Axis | Score | Why this score |
|---|---|---|
Ownership
?
Control rights: shareholder-dominated at 0, worker cooperative control
at 10.
|
8 / 10 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Governance
?
Binding decision authority: centralized control at 0, democratic
stakeholder control at 10.
|
5 / 10 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it is 100 percent employee owned through an ESOP, which broadens worker economic participation but does not by itself establish one-worker-one-vote governance. Linked evidence
|
Extraction
?
Surplus allocation, wage share, CEO pay ratio, margins, and structured
extraction judgment.
|
7 / 10 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Labor Sovereignty
?
Worker power: coercive conditions at 0, co-determination or ownership at
7. Employee dissatisfaction matters only when source-backed evidence
shows concrete limits on worker agency, such as coercive scheduling,
retaliation, wage theft, harassment, unsafe conditions, suppression of
worker voice, or extreme turnover.
|
5 / 7 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Solidarity with the
Unemployed
?
Treatment of exits and nonworkers, including severance, redeployment,
and non-competes.
|
4 / 7 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Loss-Bearing Fidelity
?
Willingness to absorb costs to preserve values, workers, users, and
public obligations.
|
5 / 7 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Market Conduct
?
Pricing fairness, switching costs, lock-in, and rent extraction.
|
4 / 5 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Product Integrity
?
Preservation of quality rather than degradation for monetization.
|
5 / 5 |
Bob's Red Mill public materials center whole-grain, simple, and quality-food commitments. Linked evidence
|
Scale Integrity
?
Whether growth improves or degrades fairness and accountability.
|
4 / 5 |
Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP. Linked evidence
|
Penalties
| Penalty | Applied | Why this penalty |
|---|---|---|
High-Carbon Products
?
Core products, services, financing, or supply chains that materially
depend on fossil-fuel combustion, high-emissions transport, industrial
animal agriculture, meat, dairy, or other unusually carbon-intensive
activity. This is scored separately from general ecological harm so
ordinary consumers can see carbon-intensive product exposure directly.
Range: -10 to 0.
|
-2 |
The company sells mixed grocery, restaurant, or packaged-food products where meat, dairy, refrigerated logistics, or high-carbon ingredients are material but not necessarily the entire business model. Linked evidence
|
Bonus Credits
No bonus credits applied in this version.
Confidence Basis
Confidence Basis
Confidence is computed from the evidence trail and review state, not typed into the profile by hand.
Medium 78/100
11 verified linked claims 10 direct axis claims 0 disputed claims 10/10 components covered
This confidence label measures the source-backed evidence trail. AI-scaffolded scores remain tentative until human review.
Claim confidence 15/20
11 verified linked claims
Source quality 11/18
Best source per verified claim, weighted by institutional reliability
Direct axis-specific claims 14/18
10 direct claims across 10 active components
Dispute load 12/12
0 disputed claims on this entity
Recency 10/10
Newest accepted timestamp: May 13, 2026
Reviewer status 7/12
Human-reviewed components score higher than AI scaffolding
Component coverage 10/10
10/10 evidence-bearing components have direct support
Evidence State
Evidence State
Profile stateAI draft / human-pending
VerificationUnverified
ConfidenceMedium confidence (AI)
ThoroughnessPartial (AI)
Correction routeUse “Challenge this rating” for
factual errors, missing counterevidence, source problems, or calculation
mistakes.
Company responseCompany representatives can
submit source-backed corrections; payment never changes scores or
reviewer authority.
Claims and Sources
Claims are the evidence record. Each claim needs a source link, axis category, status, confidence level, and timestamp before it can support a score.
* Tentative scaffolding score. Not human-checked or final.1Bob's Red Mill states that it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
2Bob's Red Mill public materials center whole-grain, simple, and quality-food commitments.
- Bob's Red Mill about usOfficial self-description · 68%
3Bob's Red Mill states that it is 100 percent employee owned through an ESOP, which broadens worker economic participation but does not by itself establish one-worker-one-vote governance.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
4Bob's Red Mill says it became 100% employee owned through an ESOP, reducing outside-owner extraction while still using an ESOP rather than direct cooperative governance.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
5Bob's Red Mill states that employees receive company stock through its ESOP, giving workers material stake and retirement-linked ownership even though the public record does not show full workplace democracy.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
6Bob's Red Mill describes choosing employee ownership rather than selling to large corporations, which preserves some worker and community value beyond ordinary acquisition-driven growth.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
7Bob's Red Mill's ESOP shifts part of business upside to employees and helps preserve company independence, but the record still leaves ordinary ESOP limits and business risk rather than full loss-bearing accountability.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
8Bob's Red Mill sells staple whole-grain and baking products through an employee-owned company, supporting above-average market conduct compared with investor-owned commodity food brands.
- Bob's Red Mill aboutOfficial self-description · 68%
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
9Bob's Red Mill scaled a national staple-food brand while becoming 100% employee owned, showing scale with employee ownership but without the direct democratic governance of a worker cooperative.
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
10Bob's Red Mill's public materials state a mission, values, ownership model, advocacy role, or institutional standpoint plainly enough that this record does not identify penalty-level neutrality theater.
- Bob's Red Mill official siteGeneral web source · 58%
- Bob's Red Mill employee ownedGeneral web source · 58%
- Bob's Red Mill about usOfficial self-description · 68%
11Bob's Red Mill has mixed food exposure high-carbon product exposure based on its listed business model and current profile description: An employee-owned food company selling grains, flours, cereals, and baking staples through an ESOP structure and broad grocery distribution. Bob's Red Mill scores well because ownership is comparatively aligned and the…
- Bob's Red Mill public siteGeneral web source · 58%
- Our World in Data: Environmental Impacts of Food ProductionGeneral web source · 58%
Help Improve This Profile
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How This Page Is Maintained
Evidence comes in through contributors, is checked by verifiers, and is synthesized by reviewers. Founder authority remains narrow and visible; scores recalculate when verified claims or the rubric change.
Civic Note
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Audit Log
Recent public changes for this company or group. The full audit log is part of the Transparency record.
Added tentative AI-generated Toxic Products penalty 0 and directory value for current toxic, addictive, pesticide, livestock, chemical, or consumer-safety product exposure.
Rechecked evidence coverage and source quality during the evaluation-quality pass; confidence now reflects direct source coverage, complexity, and remaining uncertainty rather than score direction.
Published tentative AI-generated scaffolding score 47 for initial human review under gcd-rubric-v1.