--- title: "Why GreenPath Food shut down" description: "GreenPath Food was an Ethiopian organic produce company founded in 2015 by Jacie Jones and Eric Couper, working with smallholder farms in Ethiopia's southern highlands and exporting EU-certified organic fruit, vegetables and herbs to Europe, the UK and the UAE. It was the trading brand of The Perennial Foods Group and raised roughly $4.5m led by Novastar Ventures. On 19 December 2023 shareholders of the group's UK company, The Perennial Foods Group UK Limited, passed an extraordinary resolution to wind the company up and appointed a voluntary liquidator; the liquidation ran until the return of final meeting in September 2025 and the company was formally dissolved on 10 December 2025. No press coverage explaining why the business ended was found." canonical_url: "https://liners.com/graveyard/greenpath-food" markdown_url: "https://liners.com/graveyard/greenpath-food.md" type: "graveyard" language: "en" image: "/graveyard/greenpath-food/certificate.png" published_at: "2026-08-07T10:10:35.259Z" updated_at: "2026-08-07T10:10:35.259Z" --- # Why GreenPath Food shut down GreenPath Food was an Ethiopian organic produce company founded in 2015 by Jacie Jones and Eric Couper, working with smallholder farms in Ethiopia's southern highlands and exporting EU-certified organic fruit, vegetables and herbs to Europe, the UK and the UAE. It was the trading brand of The Perennial Foods Group and raised roughly $4.5m led by Novastar Ventures. On 19 December 2023 shareholders of the group's UK company, The Perennial Foods Group UK Limited, passed an extraordinary resolution to wind the company up and appointed a voluntary liquidator; the liquidation ran until the return of final meeting in September 2025 and the company was formally dissolved on 10 December 2025. No press coverage explaining why the business ended was found. ## Breadcrumbs - [Graveyard](/graveyard) - [GreenPath Food](/graveyard/greenpath-food) ## Summary Here lies GreenPath Food. It cold-chained organic fruit and herbs from hundreds of Ethiopian smallholders to buyers in Europe and the Gulf, on $4.5m from Novastar and development finance. Nobody said why it stopped. The creditors' liquidation was the last harvest left to divide. GreenPath Food was an Ethiopian organic produce company founded in 2015 by Jacie Jones and Eric Couper, working with smallholder farms in Ethiopia's southern highlands and exporting EU-certified organic fruit, vegetables and herbs to Europe, the UK and the UAE. It was the trading brand of The Perennial Foods Group and raised roughly $4.5m led by Novastar Ventures. On 19 December 2023 shareholders of the group's UK company, The Perennial Foods Group UK Limited, passed an extraordinary resolution to wind the company up and appointed a voluntary liquidator; the liquidation ran until the return of final meeting in September 2025 and the company was formally dissolved on 10 December 2025. No press coverage explaining why the business ended was found. ## Product history | Field | Value | | --- | --- | | Fate | ShutDown | | Primary cause | FundingRunway | | Stage at shutdown | Series A | | Lifespan in days | 3256 | ## Autopsy report ## What the product attempted GreenPath contracted smallholder farmers in southern Ethiopia and helped them convert monocrop plots into intercropped, regeneratively managed 'food forests', then aggregated, cold-chained, packed and exported the resulting organic produce - green beans, papayas, avocados, lemongrass and herbs - to buyers in the EU, UK and Middle East. It described itself as Ethiopia's first EU-organic-certified fresh produce company and managed the whole supply chain. In 2019 it added Kib, a herbal tea brand, to absorb perishable herb volumes. ## What worked Engineers Without Borders Canada made a seed investment in 2016, its first Ethiopian venture. Novastar Ventures led a Series A in 2018, with DEG (KfW) and Oxfam's Enterprise Development Programme also listed as backers. MCE Social Capital added a $300,000 debt investment in February 2021 as part of a $500,000 revolving facility, at which point the company reported working with 265 partner farmers as of December 2020, later described as several hundred partner farms. It built a demonstration and training site and a seedling nursery in southern Ethiopia, and secured on-farm cold-chain equipment. ## Early warning signs UK Companies House records show the group's UK entity filed its last set of annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2020, its final confirmation statement in April 2022, and received a first Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off on 7 March 2023 - suspended two weeks later - before the voluntary winding-up resolution nine months after that. ## What happened Companies House's insolvency record for THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED (12554032) states case type 'Creditors voluntary liquidation', winding up commenced 19 December 2023, with joint liquidators Andrew Richard Bailey and Martin Charles Armstrong of 5 Park Court, Pyrford Road, West Byfleet, Surrey KT14 6SD appointed that day, and expected dissolution 10 December 2025. The London Gazette carries the matching sequence of notices: Meetings of Creditors (11 December 2023), then Resolutions for Winding-up, Appointment of Liquidators and Notices to Creditors (all 22 December 2023), then Notices of Intended Dividends on 21 March 2024 and 1 July 2024. The company had no registered charges (0 outstanding, 0 satisfied), so there was no secured lender. The UK entity had already gone quiet before that: its last accounts were for the year to 31 December 2020, its last confirmation statement was dated 8 April 2022, and Companies House began compulsory strike-off action with a First Gazette notice on 7 March 2023, suspended on 21 March 2023. ## Sources - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, insolvency case (creditors voluntary liquidation, liquidators Andrew Richard Bailey and Martin Charles Armstrong)](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032/insolvency): Companies House - [GreenPath Food: Overview, Financials, Competitors](https://startuplist.africa/startup/greenpath-food): StartupList Africa - [EWB Venture Profile: GreenPath Food](https://www.ewb.ca/en/venture/greenpath/): Engineers Without Borders Canada - [GreenPath](https://www.novastarventures.com/portfolio/greenpath/): Novastar Ventures - [GreenPath Food / The Perennial Foods Group](https://www.sidley.com/en/us/probonolanding/sidley-emerging-enterprises-pro-bono-program/projects/greenpath/): Sidley Austin - [Portfolio Spotlight: Perennial Foods Group](https://mcesocap.medium.com/portfolio-spotlight-perennial-foods-group-39e084e14bbb): MCE Social Capital - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, company overview](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032): Companies House - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, filing history](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032/filing-history): Companies House - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, officers (sole director Jacie Dannielle Jones)](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032/officers): Companies House - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, persons with significant control](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032/persons-with-significant-control): Companies House - [THE PERENNIAL FOODS GROUP UK LIMITED, charges (0 registered)](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12554032/charges): Companies House - [Novastar Ventures portfolio index (GreenPath still listed as a current portfolio company in August 2026)](https://www.novastarventures.com/portfolio/): Novastar Ventures ## Related pages - [GreenPath Food alternatives](/greenpath-food/alternatives) - [Liners Graveyard](/graveyard) ## Access and citation - [Canonical HTML page](https://liners.com/graveyard/greenpath-food) - [Markdown route index](/sitemap.md) - [Agent access guide](/llms.txt)