Salad bar chain SumoSalad has announced plans to merge with restaurant and ready meal brand THR1VE to help it expand into new channels including supermarkets.
SumoSalad hopes to leverage THR1VE’s ready meal and e-commerce platform credentials to expand into the grocery market.
THR1VE's meals are sold at Woolworths' Metro convenience stores, and delivered direct to consumers homes.
THR1VE has placed the subsidiary that operates its nine company-owned restaurant sites into administration to enable the merger, with Sumo to redeploy as many staff as possible across the merged group.
SumoSalad’s restaurant operations and THR1VE’s ready meal business are not affected by the administration.
Sumo Salad's founder and chief executive Luke Baylis says the move to omni-channel taps into growth in the supermarket ready meal market and home-delivered meal kits.
