The mushroom sector has been under pressure for years. The latest victims of the competitive struggle are sales company Laseta Mushrooms and mushroom production company Champworld of Ad and Anja Peffer from Ammerzoden, the Netherlands. The court of Zutphen recently declared both companies bankrupt. Mr C.G. Klomp of Bierman Advocaten has been named the trustee in bankruptcy. No further developments can be reported yet.
In 2018, one of the branches that Laseta used for production and packing was closed in Horst, and those activities were absorbed by locations closer to Ammerzoden. This effort to become more efficient didn’t manage to save the companies from bankruptcy. Laseta Mushrooms and Champworld didn’t want to comment, although they confirm the bankruptcy.
Laseta/Champworld produces about 220,000 kilos of white and chestnut mushrooms per week, and they employ about 250 people. The company has been active in the mushroom sector since 1975, and grew into one of the major players. “It’s painful to experience that our cry for help of last year (link to Dutch article) became reality,” says Ko Hooijmans, chairperson of the union branch for mushroom production LTO Netherlands. Last year, he sounded the alarm on behalf of the sector, and he called on supermarkets to increase the prices of mushrooms.