MPM Catering appoints administrators from Mazars
Street food specialist MPM Catering has collapsed into administration, just weeks after celebrating its Cook Street brand’s fifth year in business. Professionals from Mazars will now oversee the sale of the business’ assets.
The number of licensed premises in Britain continued its steady year-on-year decline, with one survey finding there had been a fall of 2,920 such venues over the last 12 months. Restaurant numbers in particular took a knock – despite small flourishes in the group restaurant scene. The casual dining sector has been particularly hard hit, as it traditionally depends on middle-income customers, who have seen their spending power greatly diminish in recent years.
MPM Catering is a family-run business, established in 2009, and specialises in ‘street food’ style catering with a “skilled” workforce and a fleet of catering trailers, on-site support and cold storage vehicles. Trading as Cook Street, the company operates from leased premises in Shrewsbury and provides high volume mobile catering to public events around the UK.
According to the company’s LinkedIn, “Street food took the country by storm and changed event-goers' attitudes to food – and now Cook Street combines great artisan food cooked fresh with the volume required for live events.”
Despite the apparent market surge enjoyed by street food, however, MPM struggled to make ends meet. Just three weeks after the company celebrated Cook Street’s fifth anniversary in business, it has appointed administrators. Conrad Pearson and Patrick Lannagan of global audit and advisory firm Mazars have been appointed as joint administrators. Of the 12 employees, no redundancies have been made at this stage.
Pearson commented, “This family-run business was understandably affected by the loss of their managing director, who passed away last year. In addition to this, trading has been affected by cash flow difficulties which has led the current management to conclude that they have no appetite for continuing the business. The administrators are marketing the business and assets in the short term with the hope of achieving a sale. Any interested parties should make contact with the Mazars in Manchester.”