Looks like it’s cooked to a crisp.
Food52 Inc., the buzzy cooking and home-decor company based in Brooklyn, filed for bankruptcy protection this week after a massive round of layoffs earlier this month.
The 16-year-old company’s lender yanked its funding on Dec. 15, leaving Food52 – which also owns the tableware brand Dansk and home-decor brand Schoolhouse – with no money in the bank.
“Overnight, the company found itself scrambling for survival,” according to the filing in Delaware bankruptcy court.
Food52, which offers recipes, home improvement tips and sells upscale home goods online, declined to comment.
The struggling media and e-commerce company – founded by New York Times food journos Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs – had been looking for a buyer when its lender Avidbank pulled the plug, according to the filing.
Avid did not respond to a request for comment.
One of Food52’s suitors, Boston-based America’s Test Kitchen, which broadcasts a cooking show on on public TV stations, emerged as the stalking-horse bidder agreeing to purchase the once high-flying company for $6.5 million, America’s Test Kitchen announced Tuesday.
That’s a far cry from Food52’s $100 million valuation in 2019 when private equity firm the Chernin Group forked over $83 million for a majority stake, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Food52 ran into trouble after it acquired Dansk and Portland, Ore-based Schoolhouse and “found itself managing three distinct brands with few synergies,” according to the filing. And it “faced ongoing executive changes, strategy changes and staff turnover,” the filing stated.
Based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it has occupied the entire 13th floor and ran test kitchens and studios, Food52 is led by Erika Badan, the former Barstools Sports CEO.
Badan has been at the helm nearly two years and she submitted the bankruptcy filing.
“Being blunt,” she writes in the filing, “this chapter 11 case is far from perfect but is the only path forward that maximizes value … and preserves [Food52’s] business as a going concern given the situation Avid has put the debtor in.”
The stalking-horse bid is subject to better offers. An auction for the company’s assets will be held in February, according to the filing.
America’s Test Kitchen’s offer provides Food52 with immediate access to cash to keep the business afloat during the sales process.
Food52 has assets of more than $1 million and debt of more than $17 million as a skeleton team of employees keeps it afloat, according to the filing.
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