Has anyone else lost their entire business to TUPE

[Craig Lonie]

Hi
until Friday 10the aug 2018 I was the supplier to Dominos pizza who had asked me to be the sole supplier for Ben & Jerrys ice cream, I have been supplying some of the stores for 14 years and the entire company since 2010, there has been a change in management recently and a keen procurement manager spotted that because we were only supplying Dominos it would be easy enough to get rid of my me but keep my staff (ie my expertise) using TUPE.

We were put through a dubious tender process that had so many things wrong with it it was a joke and all the procurement team wanted to talk about was TUPE ing my staff to the successful bidder.

So to cut a long story short the 13 of august or yesterday my system my staff and my vans due to a van supplier with no morals at all are all being used by EDEN FARM to supply Dominos, this was a £7m account that has been effectively stolen from me its been 20 years work and a healthly company is now closed because I was powerless to stop this has it happened to anyone else?

 

[Clinton]

Sorry to hear this, but it looks like rather than tendering for a contract you were negotiating the sale of your business assets. Unless you were discussing TOGC / asset sale I can't see how TUPE comes into it given what the "T" and "U" stand for.

Care to clarify?

And if you were discussing an asset sale, who was advising you through the process?

 

[Newchodge]

I don't understand how either your system or your vans could be affected by TUPE. the PE bit relates to Protection of Employment.

 

[Craig Lonie]

I was given no choice because we lost the contract, we were told by Dominos the TUPE process would commence and Eden farm would be in touch to start the transfer of staff, my staff were 100% employed in the contract. I could have paid everyone off but they had to be offered to work for EF which they chose to do. we received no money in this we have lost everything

 

[Craig Lonie]

I don't understand how either your system or your vans could be affected by TUPE. the PE bit relates to Protection of Employment.

the vans were an aside, eden farm found out who was supplying them and offered to take them on without my knowledge they also set up a whattsapp page with my staff and asked then to transfer all runs and tom tom files over so they could then replicate the business, they had no idea how we do, what we do. we are very specialist
We were the only van sales ice cream company in the country, the tenderw as for a van sales operation to supply Dominos with Ben & Jerrys ice cream I didn't know I was going to be up against my own guys I spoke to two employment lawyers who could not stop this happening

 

[Mr D]

I was given no choice because we lost the contract, we were told by Dominos the TUPE process would commence and Eden farm would be in touch to start the transfer of staff, my staff were 100% employed in the contract. I could have paid everyone off but they had to be offered to work for EF which they chose to do. we received no money in this we have lost everything

So who employed your staff?
I'm also baffled by how this happened. Taking your staff without you doesn't sound like any commercial tender I've come across.

 

[Craig Lonie]

So who employed your staff?
I'm also baffled by how this happened. Taking your staff without you doesn't sound like any commercial tender I've come across.

All my staff officially started working for Eden Farm yesterday we have been left with no customer and are being forced to close the company. which is costing thousands in itself insurance telephone contracts etc myself or my business parter were not offered to be transferred obviously

 

[bovine]

It sort of makes sense what has happened, but I have never heard of tupe being applied this way before. Its usually a company that is forced to take on the staff from an existing contract (cleaning seems to be the one that pops up most). By only supplying Dominos, you only have one contract so the staff would seem to be covered by tupe.
You were always very vulnerable only supplying one customer, but it does sound like you have been legally mugged.

 

[Craig Lonie]

It sort of makes sense what has happened, but I have never heard of tupe being applied this way before. Its usually a company that is forced to take on the staff from an existing contract (cleaning seems to be the one that pops up most). By only supplying Dominos, you only have one contract so the staff would seem to be covered by tupe.
You were always very vulnerable only supplying one customer, but it does sound like you have been legally mugged.

I was told in not so many words I wasn't allowed to supply anyone else

 

[Clinton]

So you had one customer, just one, and that customer decided not to renew their contract.

Do you think this maybe played a small part in the demise of your company?

 

[Mr D]

I was told in not so many words I wasn't allowed to supply anyone else

Was this in your contract?
Did they pay for exclusivity?

 

[Craig Lonie]

I was told not to bite the hand that feeds

Re our friends in MK – I would not be happy if you were supplying them as well as us. We have helped build your business to where it is today and should be able to increase it in sales terms by at least £500k again in 2014 – I would not want any other pizza benefiting from this. If you would like to discuss further then please do give me a call.



it was clear what I had to do they were growing at a tremendous rate and so were we but this email stopped me from getting more people on board to spread the risk, for fear of them finding out. because if the found out then we would lose them it was a very hard call at the time but we were growing at 500k a year and went fro 1m to 7m in 8 years

 

[Mr D]

I was told not to bite the hand that feeds

Re our friends in MK – I would not be happy if you were supplying them as well as us. We have helped build your business to where it is today and should be able to increase it in sales terms by at least £500k again in 2014 – I would not want any other pizza benefiting from this. If you would like to discuss further then please do give me a call.



it was clear what I had to do they were growing at a tremendous rate and so were we but this email stopped me from getting more people on board to spread the risk, for fear of them finding out. because if the found out then we would lose them it was a very hard call at the time but we were growing at 500k a year and went fro 1m to 7m in 8 years

The disadvantage of just the one customer is your vulnerability to changes. Not spreading your risk appears to have cost you your business, though at least not the staff.

 

[Newchodge]

Your business hasn't been destroyed by TUPE. Your business has been destroyed by your failure to win a new contract. Your staff have been saved by TUPE, but that is no consolation for you. If TUPE had not applied your company would have been responsible for the staff notice and redundancy pay.