³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Heather Mills' vegan food business VBites has collapsed into administration after being hit by rising costs.

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.

The company was founded in 1993 as Redwood Wholefoods.

It was bought by Ms Mills - the former wife of Sir Paul McCartney - in 2009 and subsequently rebranded as VBites.

Ms Mills said the collapse was "extremely distressing for me on a personal level but also for my wonderfully loyal and hard-working staff".

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 29 members of staff based at the Peterlee site had been kept on to help with trading.

The joint administrators have also kept 25 employees at the site in Corby to fulfil outstanding orders.

A total of 24 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."

Correction 13 December 2023: This article was amended to make clear that Heather Mills did not launch VBites in 1993, but rebranded RedWood Holdings as VBites after she bought the company in 2009.