The administrator for Polestar Foods has said today (7 February) that it hopes to find a buyer for the UK group’s Okehampton Desserts business.

The manufacturer last week (1 February) made 232 staff redundant at the Okehampton site with immediate effect.

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FRP Advisory has been named as administrator for the site and the firm’s Phil Armstrong said he was hopeful new owners could be found.

“We are now working towards an outcome where a buyer can be found for the operation, in the hope that some staff can be re-employed under new ownership.”

Polestar Foods was formed in 2009 following the acquisition of two desserts businesses from Heinz. It was then sold to private-equity firm Privet Capital in December, in order to prevent the “immediate collapse of the company”.

At the time of the company’s sale to Privet Capital, administrators were called in at the manufacturer’s second site in Leamington, with KPMG closing the business after being unable to sell it as a going concern.

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Armstrong said that Polestar and Okehampton Desserts have “been in difficulties” since their formation in December 2009 and that the companies were “struggling” under their previous ownership. “Unfortunately, the restructuring of the business was not sufficient to ultimately solve the companies’ cashflow problems,” he said.

He added that FRP Advisory’s employee specialists will be on-site this week to advise all staff members on their “best route back into employment and assist with their claims from the Redundancy Payments Office”.