(Bloomberg) -- Blue Apron Holdings Inc. has lost its tophuman resources executive, implemented a temporary hiring freeze ofsalaried employees and fired part of its recruiting team just as itramps up a new fulfillment center that’s supposed to help thetroubled, newly public company expand.

Kate Muzzatti’s resignation was announced internally on Aug. 10,according to two people familiar with the situation, the same dayBlue Apron decided to halt the hiring of salaried employees. Thefired recruiters included staff who helped find operations andtechnical employees, said three people, who asked to remainanonymous to discuss an internal matter.

The meal-kit company confirmed Muzzatti’s resignation and saidshe’s joining MM. LaFleur Inc., a women’s apparel startup. Therecruiting team firings totaled 14 people. They were tied to thetemporary hiring freeze, which doesn’t affect hourly positions aswell as certain roles at headquarters, the company said. BlueApron, which sells boxes packed with fresh ingredients and recipecards to make dinner at home, employs more than 5,000 people.

The shares rose as much as 1.3 percent following the newsTuesday, reversing an earlier small decline.

Since going public in June and raising less money than expected,Blue Apron has lurched from one setback to another. Lastmonth, co-founder Matt Wadiak quit as chief operating officer; hewas overseeing the teams in charge of producing boxes, procuringingredients and creating recipes. Though Blue Apron beat analysts’revenue estimates in its first earnings report as a public company,it lost customers during the quarter after slashing the marketingbudget. The shares have fallen almost 50 percent since the IPO.

Blue Apron has ambitious plans to upgrade its fulfillmentoperations and offer a much wider selection of products andoptions; to that end, it’s been moving a lot of the work to a newwarehouse in Linden, New Jersey, all the while winding down anolder facility in Jersey City.

“We recently completed an internal reorganization which involvedseveral changes to our organizational structure, including thecreation of our new consumer products team and the launch of a newfulfillment center team in Linden,” Chief Executive Officer MattSalzberg said in an emailed statement. “As part of thesechanges, we temporarily paused hiring for certain positions, whilekeeping others open, for the duration of our 2018 resourceallocation process."

But Blue Apron has had trouble keeping enough workers on theproduction lines, especially at the Jersey City facility, one ofthe people said. At the worst, more than 100 new people had to behired in a week to replace those who quit, and an average of 20 to30 weekly departures was common, the person said. Even though BlueApron pays above minimum wage, the work is stressful, involvingstanding for hours in a refrigerated warehouse with little naturallight, doing repetitive tasks perfectly. Because the process iscomplex, new workers take some time to get up to speed.

The new fulfillment center, when running at full capacity, issupposed to handle more than half the company’s productionvolume. Yet during the second quarter, only 3 percent camefrom Linden, due to unexpected challenges, Chief Financial OfficerBrad Dickerson said on the earnings call. Salzberg also said Lindenhad been slow to ramp up because training on new machinery wastaking longer than expected. Linden began operating in May, a fewmonths later than originally planned, one of the peoplesaid.

The company said the Jersey City turnover was related to thetransition to the Linden facility and that the delayed opening wasnothing out of the ordinary and typical of any large constructionproject.

The delays and other setbacks mean it will take longer thanexpected to offer new menu options. Meanwhile, Blue Apron plans tokeep cutting marketing to free up cash for the new center. As aresult, the company won’t reach $1 billion in sales this year -- amilestone many investors and analysts expected.