Vegan Ready Meal Leader Allplants Seeks Buyer to Rescue Business After Mounting Losses

British plant-based ready meal maker Allplants has moved to appoint administrators after recording continued losses, though one potential buyer is lined up.

Allplant, the UK’s largest vegan ready meal brand, has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators, following heavy losses over the last couple of years.

The move is typically used to give companies a chance to assess options for saving the business from liquidation, including creating a rescue plan or creating a sale.

The company is working with insolvency firm Interpath to explore “all possible options for restructuring, refinancing and ensuring the sustainability of Allplants”, founder and CEO Jonathan Petrides told the Grocer.

The trade publication reported that there’s one potential buyer lined up to rescue the firm, but a failure to reach a deal would see Allplants’s remaining stock be traded to secure funds for creditors.

Cocktail of factors led to a period of ‘choppy waters’

Allplants started off as a direct-to-consumer brand in 2016, and capitalised on the meal delivery boom a few years later during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Its lineup ranges from breakfast and mains to sides and smoothies, and it currently has a collaboration with cookbook author Melissa Hemsley. The meals include Protein Power Buddha Bowls, Queen Butter Bean Puttanesca, Okonomiyaki Rainbow Bowl, and Tiramisu Cheesecake, among others.

The brand made its retail debut in November 2022, listing its meals at Planet Organic and several independent stores, as well as online grocer Ocado. It witnessed instant success, selling six million meals within the first three months and becoming the second-most purchased frozen meal brand on the latter platform.

But behind the scenes, there were financial troubles brewing. It registered losses of £9.7M in the seven months to March 2023, with revenues declining to £4.1M, a period Petrides described as “the most intensely choppy waters we’ve ever sailed the Allplants ship through”, according to the company’s latest accounts.

He ascribed the sales performance to the rampant inflation across energy, transport, ingredients and salaries, the cost-of-living crisis that “led to the lowest consumer confidence since the 1970s”, post-Brexit supply chain disruptions, rising global interest rates, and the sudden and fundamental shift from growth stage to the pursuit of profitability.

Reflective of wider category decline, but hope persists

Allplants has raised £67M ($81M) across several financing rounds from investors including Molten Ventures, Felix Capital, Octopus Ventures, The Craftery, and professional footballers Chris Smalling and Kieran Gibbs.

But during a £10M raise for a factory extension in June last year, Allplants slashed its valuation significantly, going from £54.5M to £17.5M, representing a 58% drop.

“As board directors, we recognise the gravity of the situation. Along with our senior leadership team, we are working tirelessly to explore all possible options for restructuring, refinancing and ensuring the sustainability of Allplants,” Petrides told Sifted.

“While we are navigating the best path through, our focus is on continuing to deliver the best possible service to our customers while protecting the interests of our creditors, employees, and shareholders,” he added.

Allplants’s move to appoint administrators is indicative of the distressed vegan ready meal category in the UK. It was among the categories that have witnessed a drop-off in sales recently, falling by 20% between 2022 and 2023, according to Circana data commissioned by the Good Food Institute, which attributed it to cost-of-living pressures that led shoppers to cut back on non-essential and convenience items.

It reflected a wider problem for the UK’s vegan market, where sales value was down by nearly 3%, and units decreased by 10%. The country’s largest meat-free company, Quorn, posted pre-tax losses of £63M in 2023, a fourfold increase from the £15M it lost the year before. But there have been positive signs too, with plant-based meat startup This closing a £20M Series C round in June, following a 47% hike in sales last year.

Allplants isn’t the only British plant-based business to reach this point. Meatless Farm and VBites also came close to the brink, before being rescued by VFC (now the Vegan Food Group) and owner Heather Mills, respectively. Allplants will hope for a similar fate.