British food manufacturer Samworth Brothers has bought sandwich brand Ubran Eat after its private equity owner Adelie collapsed.
The Ginsters and Soreen owner paid £6.4m for the brand, after Adelie called in administrators Deloitte in May due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Almost 70 potential buyers were confirmed to have been close to sealing a deal in buying the business before the decision was taken to sell off company assets.
Adelie, which was the UK’s third biggest sandwich maker, saw their demand for retail food-to-go rapidly decline after their contracts with McColl’s, Aldi, Caffè Nero and Shell were cancelled.
The company also reported a£9.3 million loss during their 2019/20 financial year, with sales during the pandemic falling from three million products a week to around 800,000.
Nearly 2,200 employees were made redundant in June, who will now have to rely on the government’s redundancy payments service to receive some of the £1.5m owed.
The Urban Eat range, which is available in convenience stores, coffee shops and cafés, was sold to Samworth for £6.4m in the asset sell-off.
Factory assets from Adelie’s Southall site have since been sold to five different buyers for £1.4 million, including Samworth for £475,000 and Winterbotham Darby bought equipment from the Redmoor plant for £750,000.
The Real Wrap Co also bought equipment totalling around £120,000.
