Hisbe went bust owing employees, the taxman and a huge list of local suppliers more than £1 million, documents published this week show.
The York Place supermarket said it was going into liquidation last month and on Monday, a statement of affairs was published on Companies House breaking down its assets and debts.
The document, prepared by Begbies Traynor and signed by Hisbe Food CIC’s co-founder and director Ruth Anslow, says that on 1 March, the company had just £5,200 in the bank.
It owes its employees £10,843 in arrears and holiday pay and £41,379 in other non-preferential debts, lenders £903,242 and trade suppliers £295,392.
Scores of well-known local food suppliers are included in the list of 133 creditors, most owed three and four-figure sums.
These include 360 Degree Breweing company, Blackman Bee Farm, Brighton Bier, Brighton Hot Stuff, Casazul, Coffeeat33, Flint Owl Bakery, Flour Pot, Guru World Foods and Spices, Infinity foods, Orchard Eggs, Paws Bakery, Skylark Coffee, Smorls, This Little Piggy and Time for Kimchi.
A statement posted on Hisbe’s Facebook page on 2 February said the company had not been able to “weather the cumulative impacts of covid, inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.”
It said all its staff had been made redundant and paid for shifts and holidays in December and January, and notice pay would be “looked after via the proper channels.”
It said: “Regarding the ~135 local/independent Hisbe suppliers, many of whom we have 10-year-old relationships with. We built a beautiful and simple business model with them: Hisbe customers put £15 million through our tills, and we passed £10 million back into suppliers’ pockets.
“However, sadly but inevitably the closure of Hisbe leaves many with unpaid invoices that we were expecting to clear in January. It’s creating enormous personal and financial stress for some of them – and we are sad and sorry that it has come to this.
“As for the custodians of this social enterprise, Ruth and Jack. Thank you for the concern and support that’s come through our networks. Those of you who walk in founders’ shoes know the impossible workload of holding all the jobs that you can’t afford to pay experts to do, the operational pressures of the last four years and the resilience and personal sacrifice it takes to keep finding solutions and keep going. Right now, we are hurting and exhausted.
“But we are also thankful for this journey – and grateful to every supplier, customer, staff member, investor and supporter who was part of it. Together we created something beautiful and kept it going for 10 years, against all the odds.
“We hope that our rebel supermarket sowed a seed of change – and we trust that the important work to transform the food industry will continue through others.”
Also included in the list are Adur and Worthing Councils and Brighton and Hove City Council, t whom business rates are owed.
The Charities Aid Foundation is owed £57,285 Be the Earth Foundation is owed £83,636, The Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action is owed £98,144 and LEAP, part of the Real Farming Trust is owed £41,608 while the healthcare provider Here (Care Unbound) is owed £29,750.
hisbe was like a rubbish version of infinity foods
Agreed. There was no point in trying to compete against a business built up over 50 years to establish a solid local reputation for quality, variety and ethics long before woke was ever invented.
Unfortunately this is a typical result of a company run by dreamers and anti establishment lefties. They’ll take every penny it’s possible to claim from charities, government and any mugs they can drag in to invest and then run it based on zero business acumen. I see the Steiner school has just closed based on a similar ethos.
Actually Ruth Anslow has more corporate business experience than most commenters here, if you look at her background on LinkedIn she worked for multinationals such as Tesco and Sara Lee in mid management roles. I have no insight on how Hisbe was run but I also co-founded a social enterprise in Brighton at the same time as Hisbe, after nearly 20 years in a corporate business myself. Its a lot easier to criticise from the outside rather than actually have the cohones to start a new venture, IMHO.
The last five years have been brutal on businesses big and small.
Harsh and unnecessary comment. We need dreamers in this brutal world. Well done HISBE for being the place to go to other than a supermarket chain. You are missed.
Gr££n party supporters/members can’t even run a shop image them running a city
haha
Shame that the “beautiful and simple business model” obviously didn’t work.
Said by someone who can’t string a sentence together.
Go woke…go broke
FYI Mike considers anyone that doesn’t live on a diet of Greggs and Iceland to be woke.
Given Greggs IT woes and inability to sell food it looks like they’ve gone woke too!
Ben has a Grade ‘E’ CSE in wit
Because the alternative is to be asleep. Whilst that is appealing, it’s generally considered inefficient at being aware of ones surroundings.
How very unethical for an ethical supermarket. I wonder how many suppliers they have stiffed. A bizarre business model which seemed to rely on crowdfunding, begging and grants to stay afloat.
Was an overpriced showcase
What a shame but totally predictable to read comments from people slagging off a failed independent business and getting some sort of weird satisfaction from it.
I’m sorry HISBE didn’t work out and feel for the founders and all their creditors and former staff. It was a nice friendly shop with nice products and a nice idea behind it – and open late on a Sunday after other nearby corporate supermarkets closed.
Not only did the owe £1m but they also owed me a bloody free coffee and cake.
Went in the day before they closed with a full loyalty card from being a responsible consumer who enjoys carrying round empty bottles and paying loads of money to have them refilled whilst spilling clear, low quality gloop on the floor, and said I’d be back tomorrow to use it.
Did they say “Oh, we won’t be here tomorrow, best grab your hard-earned ‘freebie’ now while you can. Makes no difference to us as we’re going in to liquidation”?
No, they did not.
just not on is it
I’m sure that really did happen
Think of all the charities trust sums of money of £310,423 that has been frittered away when could have gone to people really in need
even in liquidation they have the entitled arrogance to state “We built a beautiful and simple business model “
I guess ‘happiness before profits’ is not a good business plan
Like most things, a balanced approach is best. You have to be sustainable.
If you haven’t run a business, you don’t know. Brexit clobbered small businesses with extra costs. Then COVID killed sales and shoved costs up. Then energy price spikes did the same and emptied customers wallets (400% rises in UK but only 4% in France. What sheep we are.) Small businesses are collapsing all over. But of course some people know better even though they’ve never done it themselves.
Well said Bob Barr
How’s that communism working out guuuuuuys …hey guuuuuuys!
I’m not sure you know what communism is, based on that comment.
I bet the many people and organisations they owe thousands to don’t consider them a “beautiful and simple business model”
Exactly, a lot easier to criticise than create.
It was terribly run from the top. The directors including Ruth Anslow had no idea how to run a shop. And the way they talked to staff was appalling:
“if you don’t like it you can work at Aldi”
” we get 100s of people a month asking for a job, so think yourself lucky”
“I’m not taking any advice from you, remember I’ve seen your CV”
They also ran fridges that were hot and sold unsafe meat from them. Once they didn’t order fruit, so bought it from Aldi and then sold it in their own shop misleading the customers.
Just think to yourself how high the staff turnover was! No one lasted very long.
And suppliers most small businesses, much smaller than hisbe were forced to wait months for payment and have now lost collectively £100,000s all from the local economy.
They didn’t care in the slightest!
So to all those trying to defend them… Karma got them in the end!
Second this comment. Too big too fast. Ideals we’re brilliant, but I concur with the above, huge staff turn over for a reason. Suppliers unpaid and unhappy a lot further back than 4 years 👀