Supie staff told they may not receive pay as company goes into administration

Monday, 30 October 2023

Staff of an online supermarket that was started to create competition in the grocery sector have been told they will not be getting paid this week after company went into voluntary administration.

Richard Nacey and Stephen White, of PwC New Zealand, were appointed administrators of Supie Limited on Monday by the director and founder Sarah Balle.

According to the National Business Review, a key investor pulled support.

One employee who spoke to Stuff said on Saturday night staff had to finish work early as they were told the website had crashed and was undergoing maintenance, so there were no orders to fill.

“They then messaged us Sunday morning saying that because the website was down there was no work on Sunday evening. Then this morning called a Zoom meeting and informed us we have been all terminated and are most likely not going to get paid our wages.

”Staff were very frustrated.”

Another employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, had worked for Supie for six months, up until the Monday morning meeting.

“Sarah was at the meeting but didn’t talk much, trying to fight back tears.”

Stuff attempted to contact Balle, but her phone seemed to have been disconnected. All of Supie’s social media accounts had also been deleted.

Nacey told NBR the business had faced cashflow difficulties.

Are you affected? Email brianna.mcilraith@stuff.co.nz

“While sales have rapidly grown over the last calendar year, recent growth has been lower than expected, and insufficient to provide the scale needed to operate profitably in what is a highly competitive industry,” he said.

The business did not have enough funding to trade while in administration and unless it received funding, it would likely go into liquidation, he said.

It is estimated creditors were owed about $3 million.

Nacey said it was still “early days” in the process, but said customers may want to contact their bank if they had paid by credit card to see if they could get a charge back.

Staff weren’t the only ones left high and dry by the administration. Customers, investors and food companies had also been left in the dark.

A Tip Top Ice Cream spokesperson said Susie had four overdue and outstanding invoices since September, totalling $3971.12.

Investor Benjamin Lewis said he had seen Supie pitch at an investor event and he started using the site, later investing $10,000 in the company in its second round of funding.

“[I] would reach out to them to stock products from other companies I'd invested in.”

But he never got a response which was “the only thing I didn’t like”.

“Everything else was great - the quality and value of their fresh fruit and vegetables was unbeatable.”

One customer said she was surprised to hit trouble when she tried to place an order at the weekend.

“My family and I were attempting to place our regular grocery order, but were unable to do so. After a few days of unsuccessful attempts, I began to suspect that something might be amiss, as it seemed highly unusual for a website to abruptly shut down without any prior warning.

“I reached out to Supie via email multiple times, but regrettably, there has been no response.”

She said she was saddened to learn about Supie’s problems, but was concerned about the lack of communication and apologies.

“Especially considering that many people, including myself, had paid for memberships to join Supie.”

Others had signed up for the $99 annual membership as late as last week, to find out that they were now in voluntary administration.

Supie was founded in 2021 by Balle who wanted to shake up the supermarket duopoly which is dominated by Woolworths and Foodstuffs.

In July, Supie had 55,000 customers and about 130 staff.

The online supermarket delivered to Auckland, Waikato and Tauranga and Balle told Stuff last week it was looking to expand that to the rest of the North Island early next year.

It also had plans to open unmanned, high-tech physical stores.

In a recent Consumer NZ study it found Supie was often the cheapest option for home-made takeaways.