457 jobs go as luxury food wholesaler enters administration

ADMINISTRATORS have been appointed to luxury food wholesaler Silverstar Foods with 457 notified of redundancy, including 12 at its site in Earby, Lancashire.

Will Wright, Mark Orton and Colin Haig from KPMP restructuring have been appointed joint administrators.

The company, which is headquartered in Goudhurst, Kent, had about 3,000 customers and employed 484 people across sites in Goudhurst, Tonbridge, Christchurch in Dorset and Earby. It also operated the Camden Quarter restaurant in Tunbridge Wells.

The joint administrators have retained a skeleton staff to assist them with fulfilling outstanding orders and effecting a wind-down of the business.

Wright, a partner at KPMG, said: “Following a period of sustained losses and despite the directors’ best efforts to effect 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.”