NEW YORK, June 3 (Reuters) - Activist investor Jana

Partners is lining up support for a possible boardroom battle at

Lamb Weston ( LW ) after a survey showed roughly half of the

french-fry maker's top 50 shareholders want the entire board

thrown out, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Jana owns roughly 7% of Lamb Weston ( LW ) and has spent the last

seven months pushing the company, which is worth nearly $8

billion, for operational and capital improvements and possibly

even a sale.

Now the hedge fund has until the end of June to nominate

directors to sit on Lamb Weston's ( LW ) 11-member board. A

spokesperson for Jana declined to comment on the firm's plans.

Lamb Weston ( LW ) did not immediately respond to a request for

comment.

Last month, Jana commissioned a research group to poll Lamb

Weston's ( LW ) top shareholders, excluding itself, to gauge investor

sentiment after the company's stock price tumbled 37% in 12

months and it replaced its chief executive in January.

Jana detailed the results to fellow shareholders in the

letter, noting that a majority supported a complete overhaul of

the board, while more than 80% of the polled investors supported

a significant overhaul of the board.

"Shareholder confidence in the Board was non-existent with

an average score of 1.3 on a scale of 1 (no confidence) to 10

(significant confidence)," the letter said.

"Lamb Weston's ( LW ) board cannot magically erase years of

systematic failures and the destruction of billions of dollars

of shareholder value through a perfunctory CEO change," the

letter, signed by Jana's managing partner and portfolio manager,

Scott Ostfeld, said.

He encouraged investors to contact the company directly.

Jana has long been laying the groundwork for a board fight

by identifying industry executives, including former Lamb Weston

executive chairman Timothy McLevish, as potential directors.

The last time Jana took a matter to shareholders for a vote

was in 2022 when it publicly opposed software company Zendesk's

planned acquisition of Survey Monkey parent company Momentive.

Zendesk investors rejected the deal by a wide margin, prompting

its termination.