Not as great as advertised - Analytical Lead Endless West Employee Review

I was hired in 2021 under the premise that this company recreates alcoholic beverages molecule by molecule using analytical instrumentation and scientific processes. When I started I found out that no one who formulates beverages used analytical data to do so. This is mainly because management never put enough resources into hiring enough quality people and purchasing analytical capabilities that would actually benefit the R&D dept. The analytical lab was set up initially by someone who is not an analytical chemist, which was a huge mistake in my opinion. The instruments were not maintained properly and there was no record keeping and organization of data and methods. There was a huge amount of turnover within the company in the first year I worked there and very little organization/retention of historical knowledge needed to continue working at the same capacity after certain people had left the company. Overall this company is a typical start-up, even after 7 years, and wants to desperately turn a profit without putting enough resources/infrastructure and people to properly do so. The company advertises managerial fairness and empathy, which was not true in my experience here. Management in the R&D department has no idea or experience in what is actually going on in the lab and would make decisions based on cutting costs and simplifying processes at the detriment of the quality of the products this company produces. The mentality of putting bandaids over a gushing wound and hoping it will hold. Working with people who are not chemists that were making decisions for me (an experienced analytical chemist) without acknowledging my opinion was extremely demoralizing and demotivating. Management pretends to be empathetic but that is just an act in my opinion. The average salary in the R&D dept is low when you consider that most people are doing way above their job roles and taking on too much responsibility for what they are being paid. Bottom line is, I’ve never worked for a company that actually lives up to its mission statement, and foolishly I believed Endless West would be different, but it wasn’t.