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London- Alsharq Tribune- Sarah Benkraouda
A major UK wholesaler that supplied food to Morrisons, Co-op and a variety of other retailers closed after collapsing into liquidation. The company was formed back in the mid-nineties and initially traded as Food From Scotland Ltd, focusing on providing wholesale goods to small independent Scottish retailers.
In the early 2000s, it went through further evolutions, becoming Enterprise Foods Ltd in 2001 as it expanded its operations across the UK. It then rebranded once more to the Localist - The Food Merchant last year.
But less than a year later, the company had collapsed into liquidation with debts of more than £5million, with 71 jobs lost, The Grocer reported. George Lafferty of financial and real estate advisory firm BTG was appointed as liquidator, tasked with trying to settle the company's debts and wind it up.
It came despite attempts by company bosses to turn the firm around and prevent redundancies. In a statement issued in March, Thomas McKay, the managing partner of BTG in Scotland and Northern Ireland, said directors had tried to restructure the debt, but when this was not successful, the job losses were "sadly inevitable".
"There are many small suppliers to the business that are owed money, and the loss of this route to market will also have a serious knock-on effect on these food producers as well," he said.
McKay said at the time that BTG was "working to assess all claims and establish whether there will be any dividend paid to unsecured creditors, but it is not likely to be significant, given the level of secured debts in the business".
Addressing the redundancies, he added that they were "working closely with those affected to help them access the financial entitlements and support available to them, including assistance from Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) and the Redundancy Payments Service".
Morrisons and Co-Op both told Convenience Store that they didn't anticipate that Enterprise Foods' demise it would affect their supply chains.
Morrisons only worked with the company for a small number of products and that it was communicating with suppliers and with a view to continuing the relationship "on a direct-to-store basis".
Co-op had been supplied by Localist, but only for some local food products In March, following the Enterprise Foods' collapse, Co-op began sending purchase orders directly to suppliers to prevent supply shortfalls.
It said this was a temporary measure while it assessed whether it would be appropriate to establish longer term agreements, The Grocer reported previously.
