Boutique butcher and Donna Hay’s ex dealt a devastating business blow just six months after optimistic interview about surviving the pandemic
- Much-loved Sydney butcher closing after nearly 40 years
- Farm Fresh Foods in Paddington owed money to taxman
- Owner Bill Wilson was married to foodie doyen Donna Hay
A much-loved upscale butcher is shutting shop after falling into voluntary administration.
Locals were shocked to discover on Monday that Farm Fresh Foods, located on Sydney’s busy Oxford Street, had shut its doors.
The store, owned by high-profile New Zealand-born farmer and butcher Bill Wilson, entered voluntary administration owing ‘significant debts’, the largest of which is to the Australian Tax Office.
Farm Fresh Foods’ 20 employees were told of the closure amid reportedly tearful scenes, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Mr Wilson, who owned the butcher and fresh food grocer since 1985, is the former husband of cookbook and food magazine doyen Donna Hay.
Fresh Foods, a much loved premium food store in the inner Sydney suburb of Paddington, left locals shocked after suddenly closing its doors
The store was owned by New Zealand-born Bill Wilson, who only six months ago was upbeat about the shop’s prospects
The couple, who had two boys together, split in 2015.
Locals left in the lurch mourned the store – and it appeared to have even come as a shock to Mr Bilson.
He only recently told community magazine Local Paddo that his business had thrived even as other butchers and fresh food shops shut around him.
‘There were lots of changes as we went along,’ he said in September, 2022.
‘The reason Farm Fresh expanded is because whatever businesses we lost in the community, we added it into our own.’
He said the key to the store’s survival had been adapting to what customers needed.
Mr Wilson’s former wife is the doyen of cookbooks and food magazines Donna Hay (pictured on the Gold Coast in 2017)
‘As people got busier through the week, we started offering pre-prepared meals for them to pick up on their way home,’ Mr Wilson said.
He believed that with the pandemic and rising prices seeing more people cooking at home his shop was set to cash in.
‘I think we’re going to see butcher shops coming back in a big way,’ he said.
In its last Facebook and Instagram post, the store stressed the quality of its meal preparation.
‘It’s not hard to notice all the love and hard work that goes into our Farm Fresh meals,’ the post said.
‘Every salad, every ready-made meal and every take-home lunch is prepared right here in our kitchen, by our chefs and butchers.’
Mr Wilson, who owns farmland in NSW, has been contacted for comment.
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