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Within months of struggling through the toils of voluntary administration, food chain SumoSalad looks set to merge with another company that has fallen on hard times.
Led by co-founder Luke Baylis as its company director, SumoSalad has signed a heads of agreement to explore the creation of a leading "house of wellness brands" through a merger with the THR1VE chain of restaurants.
Financial struggles led to the closure of THR1VE's nine restaurants in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but the voluntary administration process has not impacted its e-commerce ready meal business with customers including Woolworths (ASX: WOW).
Scott Langdon and Rahul Goyal of KordaMentha Restructuring have been appointed voluntary administrators of the THR1VE restaurant chain, which was launched six years ago with an emphasis on healthy eating with local chemical-free produce.
About 150 employees work in the nine restaurants.
"All workers will get their full entitlements before Christmas under a loan provided to the Administrators by the majority owners," says Langdon.
"THR1VE restaurant workers will get priority access to new jobs at SumoSalad. All the fresh food from the restaurants will be donated to charity."
SumoSalad says its mission is to "bring together category leading health and wellness brands, passionate founders, and best-in-class teams to meet the evolving needs of the customer in this high-growth market."
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