After months of vendor issues and barren shelves, Planet Organic Market is closing down.
On Tuesday, a sign at Edmonton’s Ellerslie location on Parsons Road SW read: “Attention Customers. Thank you for your continued support over the years. Planet Organic is now closed.”
The lights were off at the store. The shelves still had some product on them, but many were bare.
The landlord of the Ellerslie location, Asset Management & Operations, confirmed to Global News that Planet Organic is no longer open and it is currently working with the tenant.
While the location at 104 Street and 79 Avenue in Edmonton was still open and operating on Wednesday, the Jasper Avenue location had its lights off and doors locked. The Sherwood Park location was also closed.
In a letter to creditors obtained by Global News, the company said it had “recently conducted an examination of its finances and an appraisal of its assets and concluded that it could not continue operations and has closed the business.”
The letter also said Planet Organic was working with a few of the landlords at its locations to “transition the leased space over to interested parties to reduce the landlord claims.”
This comes after local companies said Planet Organic owed thousands of dollars in payments for product.
Several Edmonton-based businesses told Global News in January that they were still waiting on payment: Honest Dumplings was owed $6,000, while Pinnochio Ice Cream was waiting on $13,248.
Then, on Feb. 26, the company CEO Alan Thompson confirmed to Global News that it had “temporarily laid off some of our employees. This was an action that we needed to take while we finalize our restructuring.”
The letter to creditors said the company’s secured creditor is owed “in excess of $18 million” and has a lien on all of Planet Organic’s assets. Other creditor claims against the company are in the range of $12 to $16 million.
On social media Tuesday, reports circulated that the company had internally told employees it is closing all its stores. According to the Planet Organic website, it has four locations in the Edmonton area, five in Calgary, one in B.C, and another in Ontario.
The market was founded in 1993 in Edmonton.
Global News has reached out to Thompson for comment.
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