A sale was signed just before MarketPlace Fresh's administration. On 14 October, creditors vote on what happens next.

In late April 2026, A & S Wholesale Fruit & Vegetables Pty Ltd, ACN 006 598 796, and other companies in the MarketPlace Fresh group signed an asset sale agreement. A&S then stopped trading. On 4 May, administrators were appointed to A&S and to MPF Admin Pty Ltd, ACN 633 691 844.

That sequence is set out in a Federal Court judgment granting the administrators, Daniel Juratowitch and Rachel Burdett of Cor Cordis, more time to report to creditors. The administrators were appointed after that agreement was signed. They did not abandon it. They entered an amended version of the agreement because they considered continuing with the sale to be in creditors' best interests. The sale price remained unchanged.

So is MarketPlace Fresh in liquidation? No. A&S and MPF Admin are in voluntary administration, and their creditors vote on 14 October on whether to accept a proposed deed of company arrangement, end the administrations or wind the companies up. No published insolvency notice says the stores have closed.

What the sale means for the people owed money is the open question, and it is a large one.

MarketPlace Fresh was not a small suburban fruit shop. A&S reported A$105.9 million in total income for 2023-24 in the ATO's corporate tax transparency data, down from A$126.1 million the year before. In the group's own modern slavery statement for 2023-24, MarketPlace Fresh described more than 400 employees, 18 stores in Victoria and one in the ACT, a warehouse and office at the Melbourne Market in Epping, and between 450 and 550 suppliers, most of them Australian growers.

The judgment describes a group of 35 entities that operate the MarketPlace Fresh business, built from companies, unit trusts, discretionary trusts and a superannuation fund. The court called the structure complicated. About ten non-performing stores were closed between 2024 and 2026. The administrators are also liquidators of 14 other companies in the group. At the time of the judgment, the remaining group entities were not in external administration.

An older filing shows how the business was built. In July 2017, A&S lodged an exclusive dealing notification with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. It said it then operated nine fresh fruit and vegetable stores and seven flower stores across metropolitan Melbourne, branded Market Place, and handled all of the sourcing for them. Much of that buying, the filing said, was done between midnight and 5am.

The notification set out a plan to expand. A&S proposed converting its stores to occupancy licences and leasing more sites in Melbourne's growth corridors, with licensees buying through A&S or suppliers it approved. The list went well beyond fruit and vegetables: flowers, cleaning and packaging products, fitout, plant, machinery, equipment, fixtures and storage, and an ordering system. The ACCC did not object.

The filing describes the operating model in 2017, not what the 2026 sale covered. What it shows is that A&S was built as the buying and wholesale engine behind the stores, which is what makes its stopping trading in late April significant.

At the date of appointment, according to the administrators' evidence, A&S employed no staff at all. MPF Admin employed 187: 67 full-time, 71 part-time and 49 casual.

Wages were paid up to date. Other entitlements were not. The administrators put outstanding employee entitlements at about A$4.4 million, excluding redundancy and payments in lieu of notice and subject to proper adjudication. Roughly A$3 million of that is superannuation.

Then there is the question of who the employer actually was. Contracts, payslips and insurance documents were issued in MPF Admin's name, and MPF Admin met payroll tax and workers' compensation. But A&S ran the business day to day and had practical control of the staff, and MPF Admin does not appear to have had trading revenue of its own, relying on funding from A&S and other group companies. The judgment calls this the true employer issue, and says its answer affects the return to creditors and the structure of any deed.

At 9:15am on 14 October, before the main meeting, MPF Admin's eligible employee creditors meet separately. They are being asked whether to agree that the deed need not contain the provision giving them priority at least equal to what they would receive in a liquidation, and instead to have priority as set out in the terms of the proposed deed. The deed is attached to the administrators' report to creditors dated 7 October, which is not public.

When the sale agreement was signed, A&S occupied seven leased premises. By the time of the court application, three had been assigned to the purchaser or re-let to it, and four were still being negotiated. The judgment does not name the purchaser.

The business names register shows part of the picture. On 2 June, A&S stopped holding seven business names: MarketPlace Fresh, and MarketPlace Fresh Chirnside Park, Dandenong, Fountain Gate, Parkmore, Woden and Flowers. On 23 and 24 June, the same seven names were registered to WBT Fresh Wholesale Pty Ltd, ACN 697 382 111, which also holds All Asia Asian Grocery. ASIC says a business name may be transferred to a new owner when a business is sold or when a change in business structure results in a new ABN. The register does not record why these particular names moved.

Not everything moved. As at 8 October, A&S still holds 17 business names, including MarketPlace Fresh Cranbourne, Essendon, Tarneit, Templestowe and Casey Central. At Dandenong, Fountain Gate, Parkmore and Chirnside Park, the newer MarketPlace Fresh name now sits with WBT Fresh Wholesale while an older Marketplace name for the same suburb is still registered to A&S. Six more names, MarketPlace Fresh Highpoint, Karingal, Knox, Oakleigh, Point Cook and Werribee, were cancelled on 7 September without being re-registered by WBT Fresh Wholesale.

The Federal Court judgment records an asset sale but does not name the purchaser. The business register separately records seven MarketPlace Fresh names later being registered to WBT Fresh Wholesale Pty Ltd. Those two records cannot be joined beyond what they separately establish.

Two dates matter.

Amounts A&S owed before the administrators were appointed on 4 May are part of the administration, and the 14 October vote decides how they are dealt with.

For anything since, do not rely on the store name. A&S stopped trading in late April, and some MarketPlace Fresh business names have been registered to a different company since late June. Check the legal company name and ACN on the purchase order, the contract and the invoice before extending further credit.

Creditors will receive the administrators' report on the companies' affairs, their opinion on which outcome is in creditors' interests, the details of the proposed deed, and details of any transactions that appear to the administrators to be voidable. The judgment gives the outline of the deed as the administrators described it in August: the amended sale, a cash contribution, contributions from group companies in liquidation, a transfer of employee entitlements on an assumed basis, and an agreement by ANZ, which holds a facility of about A$4.5 million secured over real property, not to claim under the deed.

The true-employer issue, the final treatment of the sale and the expected returns to different classes of creditors are among the matters relevant to that decision. ASIC's notices for the resumed creditors' meeting and the employee creditors' meeting set out both agendas.

Sources: Federal Court of Australia, Juratowitch (Administrator), in the matter of A&S Wholesale Fruit and Vegetables Pty Ltd (Administrators Appointed) [2026] FCA 1317 (orders 3 August 2026, reasons published 4 September 2026); ASIC published notices of 6 October 2026; the Australian Business Register and ASIC business names register, checked 8 October 2026; the ATO's corporate tax transparency data; MarketPlace Fresh's modern slavery statement for 2023-24; A&S's exclusive dealing notification to the ACCC, N99775, July 2017; ASIC guidance on transferring a business name. ASIC notices © Australian Securities & Investments Commission, CC BY 4.0.