Tomlinsons Dairies in Wrexham owes creditors £17m

The dairy was started 36 years ago by brothers John and Phil Tomlinson

A dairy that went into administration with the loss of 331 jobs owes creditors £17m.

Tomlinsons Dairies in Minera, Wrexham, collapsed in October citing operating losses worsened by energy costs and depressed cream price.

On Thursday, administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said it owed HSBC £15.6m and Finance Wales Investments (FWI) £1.8m.

It said the prospect of recovery for HSBC was "uncertain" and "nil" for FWI.

Tomlinsons Dairies was one of the UK's largest dairy companies

Three years ago the company doubled the size of its Minera dairy, added a distribution hub at Ruabon.

Describing what led to the administration, a PwC report said the company's expansion in 2017 had been "funded by a mixture of debt, equipment finance, grant and equity" but it had gone on to make trading losses in the following two years.

The report said since October PwC had contacted 58 prospective buyers of the business but no "acceptable offers" had been made so it would be sold off on a "break-up basis".