Rathbones Bakeries, the bakery group with 1,550 employees, went into administration yesterday after weak sales following a fire at one of its factories in February this year.

The company, which had sales of £100m last year and supplies Tesco and Morrisons, captured about 15% of the market for private-label bread for supermarkets in Britain.

Corporate recovery experts were appointed from KPMG to try to sell the business while continuing to maintain operations.

It was bought from Irish company Greencore last year by Finedon Mill for E30m alongside a separate deal for Harvestime and Fresha Bakeries.

Topics