Dart Valley Foods Limited (03585942): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2018-06-11
- Administrators
- Andrew Howard Beckingham, David Smithson
- Administrators' firm
- Leonard Curtis
- Formerly
- Dart Valley Foods (Holdings) Limited
- Incorporated
- 1998-06-18
- Location
- Bristol
- Industry
- 46900 Non-specialised wholesale trade
Why it went into administration
- Cash flow / liquidity pressure
- Sustained trading losses
- Competition / price pressure
From the administrators' statement
The Butler's Grove business was established in 1989 as a sole trader entity operating from premises in Eton, Berkshire, selling and distributing premium ambient food products to customers such as independent high street retailers, garden centres, farm shops and tourist locations.
In 1990, Butler's Grove took over its main supplier, Dart Valley Foods (also an unincorporated business). This business was an artisan manufacturer of jams, marmalades, chutneys, curds and jellies based in Devon. A limited company, Products international Limited, was used as the vehicle for this purchase, and over the subsequent years, the business went through various corporate restructures and name changes, until the Company, which was incorporated on 18 June 1998, became known as Dart Valley Foods Limited.
The Company had already ceased the manufacture of its own products several years previously and focused on the wholesale side of the business, trading from premises in Woodmancott, Hampshire. The packing and logistics operation was outsourced to a third party contractor in Leeds in the late 1990s before being transferred to the Royal British Legion in Aylesford, Kent in mid-2013. In September 2015, the Company assumed back responsibility for its own packing and logistics by renting the Aylesford premises from the Royal British Legion and employing its own workforce.
Administrators' statement of proposals (2018-08-02) · Companies House register