Heather Mills' vegan food company goes into administration

VBites, the vegan food business founded by Heather Mills, ex-wife of Sir Paul McCartney, has collapsed into administration.

The company blamed rising raw material costs and energy prices.

Ms Mills launched VBites in 1993, producing plant-based alternatives in the meat, fish and dairy free sectors.

The business grew as demand jumped for vegan products, acquiring supplier Redwood Wholefood in 2009, but was hit by rising costs and supply issues.

Ms Mills said she was devastated by the collapse and paid tribute to her team, who she said had put "blood, sweat and tears" into the business over 30 years.

"This is extremely distressing for me on a personal level but also for my wonderfully loyal and hard-working staff," she said.

She said she had personally invested "tens of millions of pounds into the business" and offered "every solution I feasibly could to keep it going, but sadly mine and my staff's efforts have been thwarted".

Sales of vegan food, which is often more expensive than competing meat or dairy products, have been hit as shoppers grapple with higher food prices.

In August, Beyond Meat, which is stocked in supermarkets and supplies McDonald's, said that its sales had fallen by almost a third over the previous three months.

Sausage maker Heck announced in May it was slashing its range of meat-free products from ten to just 2.

Over the last year, Pret A Manger has closed half its vegetarian and vegan-only outlets.

However according to the Vegan Society, there are about 700,000 vegans in the UK and vegan food has a wider appeal, popular with vegetarians.

Administrators from Interpath Advisory were appointed on Monday after talks to raise new funding for VBites collapsed.

The company operates from two manufacturing sites, in Peterlee, County Durham, and Corby, Northamptonshire.

Interpath Advisory said the company would continue to trade from the site in Peterlee whilst it looked for a buyer for the business and its assets.

It said that twenty-nine members of staff based at the Peterlee site had been kept on to help with trading.

The joint administrators have also kept twenty-five employees at the site in Corby to fulfil outstanding orders.

A total of twenty-four employees across the business have been made redundant.

James Clark, joint administrator and managing director at Interpath Advisory, said: "VBites is one of the UK's leading manufacturers of vegan food products but unfortunately, and in common with many other companies across the food manufacturing sector, had seen trading impacted by rising commodity and energy prices."