Turners Fine Foods has gone into administration, with nearly 400 jobs set to be lost.
The Kent-based supplier of fresh produce and other premium food lines called in administrators KPMG on 26 July, but has already ceased trading with redundancy notices reportedly handed to staff. The company is registered under the name Silverstar Foods.
The administrators said they will be contacting creditors and employees by post, but hopes of a sale already appear to have faded.
Will Wright, partner at KPMG and joint administrator, told Kent Online: “Following a period of sustained losses and despite the directors' best efforts to affect a turnaround and sale of the business, the company was unable to continue to trade and the directors took the difficult decision to place it into administration.
'Over the coming days we will commence an orderly wind-down of the business, and will also be speaking to interested parties with a view to trying to secure a sale of the assets.
'We would encourage anybody who may be interested in acquiring either stock or assets to contact the joint administrators as soon as possible.”
The company’s plight comes as something of a surprise given that its latest accounts, filed in February for the year to 30 April 2015, showed a £1.4 million pre-tax profit on a turnover of £41.5m. Directors warned of weak commodity pricing and stressed its reliance on a strong economy, but said that revenues were running over 35 per cent higher than the previous year.
It suffered a setback when plans to move the Kent business in 2015 did not materialise, but it did invest over £1m over the course of the year in new vehicles, IT equipment and processing and packaging machinery.
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