Paramount Foods, Deeside, Wales, was spun off from Dutch food group Vion just last month, but now the private label pizza manufacturer has spun into bankruptcy and the administrators are looking for a buyer.
Sarah Bell and David Whitehouse from the Manchester office of insolvency firm Duff & Phelps, said that the company's collapse was caused by the cancellation of a contract by supermarket chain Morrisons, which accounted for 40% of its annual sales of £32.5m in 2011. Paramount also supplied Sainsbury's.
It had been one of the largest manufacturers of frozen and chilled pizzas in the UK and employs 138 people at a site in Salford and a further 312 in Deeside. The pizza bases are made at the Salford site and the manufacturing process is completed in Deeside with finished goods stored at a separate facility on this site.
But now operations have been suspended and the company's website taken down. "While the company has incurred trading losses historically, the recent loss of a major customer has left the company without any prospect of returning to profitability in line with a turnaround plan embarked upon in July this year," said Whitehouse.
