Silverstar Foods goes into administration

12 August 2016 by
Silverstar Foods goes into administration

National food supplier Silverstar Foods has ceased to trade since going into administration on 26 July.

The company, which traded as Turners Fine Foods, owed £10.4m to creditors, according to the latest set of accounts for the year ending 30 April 2015, lodged at Companies House.

The accounts also revealed that SilverStar was owed £7.1m, an increase from £5.78m in 2014.

Last year, Silverstar Foods announced a 30% increase in turnover to £41.5m, and reported a pre-tax profit increase of 32% to £1.36m.

During 2015, the company invested £1m into the business which contributed toward new vehicles, IT upgrades and improved processing and packaging machinery.

It also increased its workforce, with staff numbers rising to 311 and costs increasing by 25%, during 2015. However, in July the company announced 91 job losses at its Christchurch office.

Turners Fine Foods, which supplied general and specialist foods in the South East, posted the following statement on its website: "The company has ceased to trade, no further orders will be taken and no further deliveries will be made. The joint administrators will contact all creditors and employees of the company by post which will contain the relevant information creditors and employees will require to make a claim in the administration. The affairs, business and property of the company are being managed by the joint administrators."

Administrators Colin Hang, Mark Orton and William Wright from KPMG were appointed by the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, Birmingham District Registry.

A spokeswoman for KMPG told The Caterer: "It's all up in the air at the moment. A notice of appointment was sent out to creditors at the beginning of August, with the intention of sending out our proposals within eight weeks. They should detail a little bit more about what has happened and what the dividend prospects are for creditors."

Food suppliers have shown their support for staff and businesses affected by the liquidation.

FineFrance UK told The Caterer they had seen an increase in customer enquiries since Turners Fine Foods had ceased to trade. Arnaud Chemin, director at FineFrance UK said: "We have had customers asking about dried products, which we don't do at the moment, but will certainly start to look into."

Wayne Halstead, business development director, Brakes, said: "Of course it's never pleasant for staff or customers when a business goes into administration and the loss of Turners is no different. We first became aware of the situation on 22 July and since that date we have been actively engaging with former customers of Turners via social media, email, telephone and face-to-face, in order to offer them an alternative solution and minimise disruption to their businesses.

"In addition, there is clearly a very serious human element to this story so, we have also made a point of reaching out to former employees of Turners, including sales staff and drivers, via Twitter, LinkedIn and direct contact, to see what opportunities we might be able to offer them."

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