CEO leaving He was not fired but chose to leave. I believe he owns 2.5 million shares and paid for those out of pocket (plus $1 million for his debentures).
All large, long-time supporters of BU that I know believe his replacement will be a food industry veteran and can only be an improvement. Time will tell.
Bunge is very pleased with the Merit protein isolate. Production is at approximately 75% after a bunch of growing pains and, as per Merit's public comments, should be at 100% capacity utilization by Q3. That is, three shifts per day.
The CEO has no day-to-day involvement in the production plant so I don't see how him leaving says anything about Merit.