Aspire Food Group Ltd. et al., a group of London, Ontario-based food manufacturing companies, were placed into receivership on May 6 on application by Farm Credit Canada (“FCC”), owed $41.5 million.

Aspire operates a cricket-based protein production facility in London, Ontario which has faced major operational and scalability problems, preventing it from achieving commercial viability.

Despite early success at its Texas R&D facility, Aspire’s Ontario facility has remained at or below 50% production capacity since May 2024. The group has failed to generate positive earnings and has required repeated injections of working capital.

Although FCC provided multiple accommodations, including payment deferrals and emergency liquidity support, Aspire defaulted on the credit agreement by failing to maintain a required $1 million cash balance. In addition, Aspire owes over $1 million in unpaid property taxes, equity injections from the group’s founders have ceased, and government grants on which the group relied are no longer available.

FTI is the receiver.

Counsel is Gowling WLG for FCC, Stikeman Elliott for the receiver, and Osler for Aspire.