Heather Mills’ VBites vegan food firm collapses into administration
The business was founded in 1993 by the former model, who described the closure as “extremely distressing.”
V Bites offered plant-based alternatives to meat, fish and dairy products and Mills had worked with fast food chains including McDonald’s.
The business had also produced vegan food for French ski resorts and ran cafés in Hove and Chester in the 2010s.
In a lengthy statement, the former wife of Sir Paul McCartney blamed the administration on a “combination of corporate greed and poor management” as well as rising costs and manufacturing difficulties.
Mills said she had personally invested “tens of millions of pounds” into the business and offered “every solution I feasibly could to keep it going”.
She added: “Brexit has been an utter disaster for the supply and maintenance of the sector and the government doubtless has a lot to answer for.
“Likewise, the greedy utility companies and their broker networks, who have raised costs to the point where businesses can no longer afford to operate through a variety of nefarious practices currently being investigated.”
On December 11th, VBites Foods Limited appointed James Clark and Howard Smith as joint administrators from Interpath Advisory.
The company’s Peterlee, County Durham manufacturing facility is still open for business while a buyer is looking to purchase the company and keep all 29 employees on board.
Administrators have retained 25 staff at the VBites manufacturing site in Corby, Northamptonshire, but 24 jobs have been made redundant.
Plant-based meat brands have struggled this year amid a slowdown in demand for their products.
Leeds-based Meatless Farm laid off most of its 100 staff and fell into administration earlier this year, before being purchased by vegan brand VFC.
In June, administrators were summoned by Plant & Bean, a Lincolnshire-based supplier to Tesco and other businesses.
Middlesborough-based Marlow Foods, which makes meat alternative Quorn products, posted a £15.5m loss last year amid rising costs and a slowdown in supermarket sales.
