Pros
Rank and file are full of creative, intelligent, kind people who offer each other support. Unfortunately this seems to be a reaction against the callous toxic positivity (and occasional explosive dressings down) from upper management. Hiring in the US seems to be centered around young, junior-grade employees, emphasizing new tech and disruptive innovation. Sadly, this is at the expense of those with experience, technical and institutional knowledge, which are crucial in evaluating these new ideas in the context of the company's capabilities. That these individuals are also able to foment clear opinions and feedback to management is surely coincidence. Ajinomoto Co., the parent company, is prestigious, the top food company in Japan, and enjoys political support. As such, the Japanese government will probably not allow Ajico to fail in a catastrophic way, so in that sense this is a very stable company. However this stability has created a conservative attitude in the expat employees, who are completely unprepared or unwilling to challenge the US management team. If you play workplace politics well and are prepared to toe the line, you'll do well here, as long as the house of cards stands.
Cons
The US management team at Itasca, barring very few individuals, are non-technical and are incapable evaluating innovation on technical merits. Instead, their basis of evaluation are popular consumer trends and patronage - connections to influential individuals at client companies. Pursuing projects based on these metrics worked during ZIRP, but as we enter the 3rd year of "normalized" rates it is clear upper management cannot move past schoolyard popularity (plant-based, AI) and crowd-sourcing innovation. They have fallen into a common trap for executives - a myopic focus on the short term. They leverage and sacrifice the 100 year reputation of AjiCo to push projects that are not backed by proper business fundamentals; alignment with production and R&D capabilities, robust consumer research, investment in processes and controls, and realistic returns on investment.