Baker rises again as friends rescue jobs
Feb 9 2009 By Graeme King, The Journal
Mr Phillips said: "The people from RMT were really helpful, very professional, very courteous, when it was such a traumatic period for my family and all the staff.
"Our suppliers have stepped in with small loans and some friends have helped. Also Newcastle City Council helped us to secure premises to create a new bakery. We are hoping to spend around £50,000 to purchase the bakery equipment."
Mr Phillips said he was content that while Dundees had to fold, he and the business had made a good contribution to the local economy.
He said: "Personally, I don’t think we failed. We put hundreds of thousands of pounds into the local economy over the years, put money into Revenue and Customs, employed people, and we’ve paid money to the council in rents and rates.
"If people don’t support local shops, a lot of small businesses will suffer. Since we’ve re-opened the response has been incredible. Takings after one week of trading were exactly the same as what we were doing before." Nichols now has outlets in Monkseaton, North Shields, Wideopen, Cruddas Park, and in the Grainger Market in central Newcastle.
Mr Phillips said the months leading up to Dundees’ closure were hard to handle. He said: "These last few months have been the worst I’ve known in this business for 18 or 19 years. We had 20% price increases from the suppliers where we bought 60% of our products from. That had a huge detrimental effect on us, allied with banks not being exceptionally helpful either. Suppliers understandably became very, very cautious with us."
Mike Pott from RMT said: "As an administrator, what you had to sell from Dundees was quite limited. You could not sell the business as a lot of the leases had expired, so liquidation was the appropriate route.
"Although we had interest from a number of parties, Mr Phillips was the only one to make a formal offer to buy the assets. Our experience has been that the parties represented at the creditors’ meeting were extremely supportive and the money he raised to buy the assets back was supported by friends who loaned him the money.
"With the economy as it is, it’s nice to see businesses continuing, and employment being generated out of that."
