Failed online supermarket Supie owed $2.1 million to more than 4000 creditors, a liquidators’ report shows.
The report, released on Thursday night, showed Inland Revenue was owed almost $900,000, with smaller amounts owed to companies including Coca-Cola, Tegel, Foodstuffs and Fonterra.
While an anonymous donor had paid wages owed to many former Supie employees, 89 of the 122 staff were still owed $120,797 in outstanding wages and holiday pay. Employees did not receive redundancy pay.
Creditors voted to liquidate Supie and its related companies, Workerlyand Bevie, at a watershed meeting on November 9. On that date, the companies had $179,000 in the bank.
However, the liquidators’ report said a lack of sales and scale had contributed to the company’s collapse six weeks ago.
The closure came just days after Balle told Stuff the supermarket competitor would be expanding throughout the North Island early next year. It also had plans to open high-tech, unmanned stores in regional New Zealand.
A Supie investor update from the board of directors in April said the store was doing well and had grown orders by more than 150% in less than three months.
But it was experiencing pushback from multiple suppliers concerned that its prices were competitive with the duopoly and demanding that it increased retail pricing, despite maintaining reasonable profit margins.
