A deal to secure The Meatless Farm Co.’s future is imminent following the appointment of administrators.
Plant-based meat peer VFC Foods is about to rubber stamp the purchase of Meatless Farm, with an official announcement due as soon as today (20 June), a spokesperson for the prospective buyer told Just Food.
VFC Foods, known for its vegan fried chicken (VFC), is co-owned by Veganuary founder Matthew Glover. He set up the company in 2020 in North Yorkshire, England, with business partner Adam Lyons. Entrepreneur Glover is also a managing director at private-equity firm Veg Capital.
Geoff Bouchier and Benjamin Wiles, financial advisors at Kroll, confirmed last week they were appointed administrators of Meatless Farm in May, and had since been “exploring all options for the business and its assets”.
Meatless Farm, set up in 2016 by Danish national Morten Toft Bech in the northern English city of Leeds, booked a net loss of £23.5m ($29.5m) for the year to 31 December 2021, wider than a £15.4m loss in the preceding 12 months, according to the most recent accounts filed with Companies House in London.
Turnover was £12.5m but with an operating loss of £22.9m. Total assets were listed as being £29.2m with £8.9m in liabilities.
VFC Foods, meanwhile, said in April the plant-based chicken business was seeking to expand in the UK and internationally after receiving a new batch of investment from Veg Capital.
Already present in the Netherlands and the US, VFC Foods said it also planned to launch in the Nordics, Belgium and Spain, with further expansion earmarked for France, Germany and Australia.
Before the confirmation of the administration process by Kroll last week, a clutch of Meatless Farm employees had taken to LinkedIn to declare they had been made redundant.
Meatless Farm had been supplying the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and Morrisons in the UK, and was also marketing its meat-free products in Europe, including Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. It also had offices in Amsterdam, New York and Singapore.
The company had previously secured backing from private-equity fund Stray Dog Capital and Swiss investment company Beyond Impact. In 2019, the business received an unquantified “seven-figure” investment from TV broadcaster Channel 4 via its Commercial Growth Fund in return for an undisclosed stake in the company.
The plant-based business pocketed $31m in September 2020, adding to a previous $17m funding round. The Danish publication Borsen, quoting Toft Bech, reported in 2020 that the company was after additional cash, equivalent at the time to $70m.
