Poultry company Cooks Venture, which ceased operations in late 2023, has filed for bankruptcy.
The company, which had operations in Arkansas and Oklahoma, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on April 19 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.
A chapter 7 bankruptcy does not involve the filing of a plan of repayment, but rather, the bankruptcy trustee gathers and sells the debtor’s non-exempt assets and uses the proceeds of such assets to pay holders of creditors in accordance with the provisions of the bankruptcy code.
Cooks Venture, which was founded in 2019 by Matthew Wadiak, former chief operating officer of Blue Apron. It specialized in the production and processing of pasture-raised, slow-growth chickens, and operated plants in the Oklahoma towns of Jay and Tahlequah.
Just months after Cooks Venture formed, it announced that it has secured $12 million in financing, with part of those funds being devoted to expanding its plants so it could process up to 700,000 birds per week. Then, in 2022, Cooks Venture secured an additional $50 million in funding from insured technology financing pioneer, PIUS, to expand its genetics program.
But that financing apparently did not lead to success, and Cooks Venture employees were notified via a letter in December 2023 that stated: “We regret to inform you that, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to find a solution to the Company’s financial difficulties and are left with no choice but to shut down the company and its facilities."
Since that time, contract growers for Cooks Venture have been vocal about their worries about not getting appropriately compensated, which prompted Arkansas State Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, to write a letter to Gov. Sara Huckabee Sanders and Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward, urging them to declare a state of emergency to get money to those farmers.
However, shortly King penned his letter, Ward wrote back, explaining that his request for an emergency declaration had been denied, explaining that “the proper role of government does not include state assumption of private debts,” and if the state government did so, it would be going “beyond the scope of appropriate state action.”
Cooks Venture is being represented in bankruptcy court by the Wilmington law firm Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell.
