Farmison, the online butcher goes into administration
Farmison, the online Yorkshire butchers has gone into administration with the loss of 75 jobs.
The business ceased trading on 6th April and the affairs, business and property of the company are being managed by Arvindar Jit Singh and Benjamin Neil Jones of FRP who were appointed Joint Administrators.
Arvindar Jit Singh, Partner at FRP and Joint Administrator of Farmison Limited, said in The York Press: “Farmison had made significant investment in recent years in its operations as it aimed to carve out a differentiated brand and offering in the online retail space.
“However, it proved too heavy a burden to sustain without the uplift in sales that it had expected. Without a major capital injection, the business could not continue trading and we must now commence an asset sale.
“We encourage any interested parties to come forward. In the meantime, we have a specialist team working with impacted staff to access support through the Redundancy Payments Service.”
Tony Hindhaugh, co-founder of the butchery, Parson’s Nose commenting on the news said: “It has always been a challenge to source good butchers, especially for higher-end retail operations. This is mainly because there is limited incentive for the young to desire to be a butcher; it’s hard and requires a long day’s work and there is a serious lack of apprenticeship opportunities within the industry, which I encourage the Government to address if the UK is to maintain its expertise and leadership within the sector.”
Speaking about the future of the industry Hindhaugh added: “Butchers will always remain, because they are at the top end of most of the retail scale when it comes to price, quality and customer service. As the focus on mass-produced farming increases and the health issues associated with this type of meat become clearer, the interest and desire for low-production free-range farmers, who operate ethically and with sustainable farming principles is growing, rapidly. Our tagline is “Eat better, Eat less meat”, which sounds crazy for a butchery business, but this is the way we see the industry surviving. Eat less meat, but please make sure that it is good quality meat- know where it’s from.”
He continued: “At Parson’s Nose, we see a very bright future for butchery, but only for top-quality product. In my opinion, veganism will never take over the world and nor should it. But then again, neither will meat. My absolute belief is that the future is about a healthy and happy balanced diet; meat, fish and vegetables. The news of Farmison going into administration was genuinely a shock for me and I have no doubt that there were underlying reasons, but it is a shock that a seemingly successful business can go from boom to bust so quickly and it should be a wake-up call for all businesses in this arena.”
“Our bricks and mortar stores are doing well, despite the cost of living crisis, but, in these stores, we can control the all-important customer experience and that counts for a lot. The online business is not as simple as running a physical store and that is down to the actual cost of developing, maintaining and continuing to innovate your online store as well as dealing with the logistics.
“In order for things to change, part of it is defiantly the old tale of ‘save the high street.’ Rents, rates, utilities, staff costs, inflation to name but a few, will put massive pressure on the physical stores for the foreseeable future. These factors will close down businesses. Whilst, we operate in an area of the country where we are lucky enough to have an affluent customer base, our stores will always be at risk because the “save the high street” is so much bigger than our influence. However, the online opportunity, whilst turbulent, is heading upwards.
“We are offering to try and help any of the employees from Farmison who have lost their jobs. That includes butchers who would be willing to make the move to London, but also some of the support staff, who can work from anywhere, including Ripon.”
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