{"id":612608,"date":"2026-09-26T17:42:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T17:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612608\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T17:42:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T17:42:27","slug":"westie-food-group-collapse-creditors-owed-5-8m-by-pie-distributor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/612608\/","title":{"rendered":"Westie Food Group collapse: Creditors owed $5.8m by pie distributor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The report noted WFG only marketed and distributed the pies, with an \u201cindependent third-party manufacturer operating from the same premises\u201d responsible for baking and packaging.<\/p>\n

Receivers said WFG failed after \u201cexperiencing cashflow issues, and its creditor position was worsening\u201d.<\/p>\n

Receivers withheld the value of company assets \u2013 aside from noting two company vehicles had been sold yielding $35,294 \u2013 but said there would likely be a shortfall to creditors owed a total of $5.9m.<\/p>\n

Secured creditors were owed $2.2m, including $1.2m due to appointer BNZ.<\/p>\n

Preferential creditors \u2013 employees and Inland Revenue \u2013 were owed $337,985.<\/p>\n

Unsecured creditors were listed as being owed $3.3m, and were warned a full write-off was likely.<\/p>\n

Receivers anticipated being able to settle all sums owed to preferential creditors, and part-repayment to BNZ. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, as the asset realisation process is not complete, it is not possible to provide an estimate on the level of funds available,\u201d receivers said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDistribution to other [unsecured] creditors are not envisaged at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collapse of WFG occurred at the same time a related food company also ran into solvency issues.<\/p>\n

On July 15, the same day receivers were appointed to WFG, liquidators were also appointed to Good Vibes Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n

WFG and Good Vibes share director and shareholder Stefan Crooks. <\/p>\n

Crooks was listed as the managing director of WFG.<\/p>\n

Stefan Crooks did not respond to Herald requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Good Vibes was incorporated in 1992 and traded as a school lunch manufacturer. It also operated several school canteens.<\/p>\n

Good Vibes had been a provider for the controversial Healthy School Lunches programme until December 2025.<\/p>\n

Last year Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni said Crooks had been \u201cone of the big Auckland lunch in school providers\u201d but had lost much of his business with recent changes in government policy, and \u201c65 people from Westie Pies were laid off as a result of the cancelling of their contract\u201d.<\/p>\n

Liquidators Steven Khov and Kieran Jones\u2019 first report into Good Vibes reported creditors were owed more than $8m \u2013 including $2.3m owed to BNZ.<\/p>\n

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism, including twice being named Reporter of the Year, and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting for business newspapers and national magazines.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The report noted WFG only marketed and distributed the pies, with an \u201cindependent third-party manufacturer operating from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[21939,301685,51,138,3595,17400,42503,17397,29846,564,209,120,1132,4380,111,139,69,26693,44236,70012,37293,17399,1455,3807,301684,102],"class_list":["post-612608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-21939","tag-58m","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-by","tag-collapse","tag-collapsed","tag-creditors","tag-distributor","tag-food","tag-group","tag-likely","tag-million","tag-millions","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-owed","tag-owes","tag-pie","tag-receivers","tag-shortfall","tag-warning","tag-west","tag-westie","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}