Popular West Australian bakery, Barretts Bakery, has recently gone into administration. The appointed administrator is Worrells’ principal Mervyn Kitay, who was appointed on July 27, 2023, according to a published ASIC notice.

The decision to place the business into administration comes after Barretts Bakery was issued with a $2 million debt to the Australian Taxation Office and comes off the back of issues that arose for the business during the COVID pandemic. Mervyn told 7News that the debt that the bakery owes the ATO is a legacy debt. The ATO has recently ramped up efforts and become more aggressive in actions undertaken to see non-compliant companies pay off their debts, especially now that the pandemic is all but over.

“If you company does not pay certain liabilities by the due date, we can recover these amounts from you personally as a current or former company director,” the ATO has previously warned.

A first meeting of Barretts Bakery’s creditors was scheduled for August 8, 2023, but no news has come out of that as yet. The initial focus of meetings such as this will be on rescue restructuring plans for the business that may see it survive being put into administration.

Barretts Bakery first opened in 1998 and became well known across Perth for its bread, cakes, muffins, and other sweets. It previously owned a chain of bakeries across Perth, including in Perth CBD, Victoria Park, Claremont Quarter, and Mount Hawthorn. Now, it is facing liquidation or sale if the administrators cannot alight on a rescue plan to restructure the business.