Mona Dairy

Source: Mona Island Dairy

At the time of the administrators report, Mona Island Dairy had 201 company creditors owing £37.2m

Mona Island Dairy collapsed owing £37.2m to creditors, the administrators report has revealed.

The Anglesey-based cheese facility was put into administration two weeks after its owners warned the business had run out of cash.

Anthony Collier and Phil Reynolds of specialist business advisory firm FRP were appointed as joint administrators on 7 June.

At the time of the administrators report, Mona Island Dairy had 201 company creditors owed £37.2m.

Over £30m of capital was invested into the project to design and build the dairy facility, which had a planned production capacity of 35,000 tonnes and was built with the aim of being net zero.

This was largely funded by David Heneage Wynne-Finch as a shareholder and subsequently by secured debt provided by Dairy Investments and Klooster.

Although the company was incorporated on 28 April 2017 and had commenced trading on a small scale, the company was awaiting its BRCGS audit and accreditation, which would allow trading to “materially increase”, said the report.

The delay in receiving this accreditation “restricted its ability to trade profitably and therefore its ability to make significant profits to allow repayments to the secured and unsecured creditors”.

Read more: Welsh cheese producer Mona Island Dairy appoints administrators

The company had operated at a combined £3m loss across 2023 and 2024 at EBITDA level. 

According to FRP, the company began to experience cashflow pressures in May 2024 when it became apparent that Wynne-Finch would not continue funding the company and the company failed to secure additional funding from third parties.

Parent company Different Dairy Ltd has also been placed into administration by creditor application to court.

Mona Island Dairy shut down owing secured creditors significant sums, including £1.1m to Kloosters, £6.8m to Dairy Investments, as well as £42k for employees and £322k to HMRC.

Administrators expect secured creditors to receive some sort of payment once assets have been sold.

Unsecured creditors were owed £29m, including £4.5m to farmers, £12.5m in shareholder loans, £3m in grants, £5.4m to connected companies and £2.9m to Liprovit, a third party company that owned part of the facility at the Mona Dairy site.

It is not yet clear whether there will be any money to repay unsecured creditors.