Prepared food company Barrowcliffes has bought foodservice supplier Ready Steady Veg for an undisclosed sum, after the latter went into administration last month (5 February).
Administrators Wilson Field were appointed to Scunthorpe-based Ready Steady Veg after the company lost a major contract.
The takeover will preserve eight permanent positions from the company’s previous staff base of 12, with four employees made redundant.
It will also develop Nottingham-based Barrowcliffes’ processing capacity and provide a strategic position in the North East, a company statement said.
Tony Archer, a previous director of Barrowcliffes, will head up the new venture as managing director.
He said: “We took this over as a going concern. There is a lot of interest around the area as there is lots of unemployment. We are hoping to take more people on and may be looking to recruit in the next few weeks.”
Archer said he had been in “strong” talks with potential new customers, although nothing was confirmed yet. He added that there is one customer still trading with Ready Steady Veg, which is why the eight staff members were kept on.
“The factory has been modernised and cleaned up, so it’s all ready to go,” he said.
Barrowcliffes business development manager Bernadett Tisza will take on the same role at Ready Steady Veg and have responsibility for customers, NPD and raw materials sourcing.
She said: “What we are looking at is Ready Steady Veg expanding quite dramatically. That will be in terms on staff, variety of products and customer base.”
The acquisition was made under a new Barrowcliffes subsidiary, Ready to Cook Veg.
Archer said creating this name was part of the conditions of the takeover, another of which stipulates the new company must be called Ready Steady Veg 2014 for several months, before the 2014 can be removed.
The 23,000sq ft factory unit at Ready Steady Veg contains a packing room, optical sorters, processing lines and multihead weighers, with a capacity of up to four combinations of any product.
A statement from Barrowcliffes said further investment will add cooking and roasting processing lines.
Archer said that Ready Steady Veg employed up to 80 people in its heydey.
“This is an exciting development for Barrowcliffes and further enhances its capabilities and product range, offering customers new opportunities,” a Barrowcliffes statement said.
Barrowcliffes is one of the UK’s longest-running food processing companies, specialising in vegetables, root crops, herbs, mushrooms and fruit to wholesale.
Ready Steady Veg 2014, located on Scunthorpe’s Flixborough Industrial Estate, will supply chilled and frozen fruit and vegetables into the UK and European foodservice sector.
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