Ming Foods Limited, the family-founded Kent maker of Chinese pancakes established in 1984, has entered administration. The Express reports that the gazette notice was formally handed to the company on 24 June 2026, and that the administration process will be overseen by Steven Wright of The Dains Group in Scotland. The company, which operates from Upper Hockenden Farm on Maidstone Road in Swanley, joins a lengthening list of UK food businesses to surface on the government’s public-record notice site.
Ming Foods describes itself as a specialist in “premium” Chinese pancakes, and its products flow through UK and EU wholesalers to supermarket chains and restaurants. The Swanley operation traces back more than four decades, and the collapse brings an abrupt end to a run that included a 2012 move into a 25,000-square-foot factory and, until recently, exports as far as Australia and the United States.
The Filing and the Administrator
Ming Foods Limited is the subject of a gazette notice dated 24 June 2026, and Steven Wright of The Dains Group will run the administration. The Dains Group’s business recovery arm in Scotland trades through William Duncan (Business Recovery) Ltd, and Wright’s LinkedIn profile lists him as Partner and Head of Business Recovery at Dains (Scotland).
The company’s registered office sits at Upper Hockenden Farm, Maidstone Road, Swanley, Kent, BR8 7QH, and the firm is registered with Companies House under company number 05067343. The register was incorporated on 9 March 2004 and lists the firm’s nature of business as 10890, Manufacture of other food products not elsewhere classified. Ming Foods had been trading for 22 years at the time of the gazette notice.
By the numbers
- Founded: 1984
- Gazette notice: 24 June 2026
- Administrator: Steven Wright, The Dains Group
- Company number: 05067343
From a Kitchen in 1984 to a Swanley Factory
The Express reports that the firm was started in 1984 by founders Mr and Mrs Minh, who began in their own kitchen before moving through a restaurant and into manufacturing. The company’s origins sit at the family kitchen, not a venture-funded factory floor, and the 22-year gap between the founding date and the Companies House incorporation in 2004 reflects a long stretch as a smaller, kitchen-led operation.
Co-founder Sam Duong told the company’s profile with the Sevenoaks district that, in 2012, the business had outgrown its previous site in Erith and took a 25,000-square-foot factory in Swanley. He said the team had originally been looking for around 10,000 square feet but stepped up because the location sat near London and Dover.
From the Swanley base, Ming Foods grew into an exporter that the same profile describes as reaching “as far East as Australia and as far West as the USA.” Distribution in the UK and the EU runs through oriental wholesalers, who on-supply supermarket chains and restaurants. The factory is also home to a piece of home-grown engineering: the Express reports that the firm adapted a pasta roller into a piece of equipment that makes pancakes, a small mechanical detail that points to the lean, hands-on culture the founders built from the kitchen up.
The Financial Trail on Companies House
The Companies House register for Ming Foods Limited still lists the company as Active, with a “Warning Accounts overdue” flag, and a confirmation statement next due 29 July 2026. The last accounts on the public file were made up to 31 August 2024, with the next set, for the year ending 31 August 2025, due by 31 May 2026 and now overdue.
Per the Express, drawing on Company Check data, total current liabilities have been steadily rising since 2020, while both net worth and cash have been falling over the same period. On the same register, three charges remain outstanding against the company, a count that sits alongside the gap in published accounts as a paper-trail signal of pressure building across the past five years. The combination of overdue accounts and rising liabilities, against a backdrop of unchanged ownership, suggests a firm that stayed private but ran out of room.
Sam Duong, born July 1974 and listed as both Director and Company Secretary since 9 March 2004, remains the sole current officer on the register. Previous directors include Van Minh Duong and Anthony John Baker, alongside SWIFT INCORPORATIONS LIMITED, a corporate formation agent. The continuity at the top, 22 years on from incorporation, makes the abrupt turn this month harder to read as a routine management reshuffle.
- Three outstanding charges on the Companies House register
- Full accounts last filed for the year ending 31 August 2024, with a Warning Accounts overdue marker on the public record
- Company Check: current liabilities rising and net worth and cash falling since 2020
A Creditor Steps In, and a Six-Day Director
The public court record paints a sharper picture of how the collapse arrived. Case number CR-2026-MAN-000873, listed on the Companies Court case record for the winding-up petition, was filed on 5 June 2026 in the Companies list as a Petition, Winding Up Petition, with the last case activity logged at 15 June 2026. The petitioner is Merchant Money SPV C Ltd, represented by Freeths, and the Official Receiver is recorded as a third party on the same docket.
The path that led to that petition runs back more than a decade. The pancake manufacturer faced a cash-flow crisis when it lost its funding facility in 2012, and in 2015 the firm approached Bibby Financial Services for an invoice finance facility, as set out in the 2016 growth interview with co-founder Sam Duong. By 2016, Ming Foods was running 3M pancakes a week from the Swanley site on a £2.2M turnover, with about 28 workers on the books.
Duong framed the BFS deal, in that same 2016 interview, as the moment capital pressure eased and growth became possible again.
In the past, it was tough to raise the capital we needed to grow the business and realise the potential that we believed it had. However, both funding and expertise from BFS have relieved the cash-flow pressure we faced and it has allowed us to think about growth and innovation.
That quote comes from Sam Duong, co-founder and CEO of Ming Foods, speaking to FoodManufacture.co.uk in May 2016. The same interview set a target of 15% year-on-year growth over five years and identified exports, which Duong said were already around 20% of revenue, as the engine.
On top of the petition, the Express reports that Ming Foods appointed a director for just six days and then terminated that appointment, in the immediate run-up to the administration. The six-day window is short enough to suggest the appointment was a paperwork move rather than a real change in leadership, and it lands inside the same fortnight as the 5 June petition and the 24 June gazette notice.
How Ming Foods Made Its Pancakes
Ming Foods Limited specialises in the production of Chinese pancakes, which the company describes on its own website as “premium.” The same product range, per the Express, includes spring roll wrappers and double strength self-raising flour, all distributed across the UK and the EU through oriental wholesalers who on-supply supermarket chains and restaurants.
The production setup borrows from pasta. The Express reports that the team adapted a pasta roller into a piece of equipment that makes pancakes, an example of the kind of in-house engineering a small food manufacturer relies on to keep unit costs down. In 2016, that line was running 3M pancakes a week, totalling 1,500 tonnes of product a year, on a £2.2M turnover and a headcount of about 28 workers.
The same factory has, until recently, served a global footprint. The Sevenoaks district profile records exports as far as Australia to the east and the United States to the west, alongside the UK and EU wholesale channel. The product set, the adapted kit, and the export reach together make the brand more than a local bakery, and they are the assets that any administration process will now have to value.
| Product | Description |
|---|---|
| Chinese pancakes | Described on the company website as “premium”; the flagship line |
| Spring roll wrappers | Distributed alongside the pancakes |
| Double strength self-raising flour | Listed in the company’s own range |
| Adapted pasta roller | In-house production equipment, retrofitted from pasta machinery |
What Stays Unclear
It is unclear, at the time of writing, whether the Swanley factory is still trading, whether staff are still on site, or whether the brand’s products are still moving through UK and EU wholesalers. The Express says it contacted both the company and the administrators for comment, and that no response had been received by the time the article went out. Ming Foods itself has not publicly commented on the gazette notice.
The petition was filed on 5 June 2026, the gazette notice followed on 24 June, and Steven Wright of The Dains Group’s Scottish business recovery arm, trading through William Duncan (Business Recovery) Ltd, is named as the administrator. What the published record does not yet say is whether the company will be sold as a going concern, broken up, or wound down, and the Swanley site’s fate, and the jobs attached to it, will turn on what Wright and the creditors decide next.
