The food and tobacco wholesaler, Palmer & Harvey, who have been in business for 92 years and have had annual sales of over £4 billion, has crashed and gone into administrations, with the loss of about 2,500 jobs.
The wholesaler was Britain's biggest, supplying to retailers such as Tesco, and providing frozen foods and tobacco to 90,000 customers ranging from your local corner shops owned by Asians, to big supermarket chains.
The administrators said, “The group has been hit by challenging trading conditions in recent months and efforts to restructure the business have been unsuccessful. This has resulted in cashflow pressures and it has not been possible to secure additional funding.”
What has also been alleged is that Palmer & Harvey had paid out approximately £77 million in dividends a year to selected managers and executives for nearly 10 years after a management buyout. Thousands of workers are enraged after losing their jobs just weeks before Christmas.
