Lewis Hamilton and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Neat Meat restaurant group is set to close half of its eight UK burger locations, according to reports.
The F1 driver invested in the series in 2019.
However, last year saw NEET meet losses increase by almost 140 per cent, so action is being taken behind the scenes with the future in mind.
The chain currently has restaurants in London’s Wembley, Liverpool Street, Victoria, Canary Wharf, Oxford Circus, Stratford, Soho and Camden.
Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio is also an investor in this business
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Yet the meat-free group has now decided to close its Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf, Oxford Street and Westfield Stratford sites before Christmas, according to This Is Money.
Redundancies are being queued up, with bosses warning staff the company’s future is ‘at risk’.
They have told employees that the property has been closed due to rising rents.
The cost of living crisis and the impact of hybrid working also represent other issues.
Neat Meet admits that they have grown very quickly in their early stages and will now focus on locations that ‘still deliver growth’.
A message to staff read: “Sometimes it takes a step back to take bigger leaps forward.”
A recent Companies House report revealed that Neat Meats is set to make a post-tax loss of almost £7.9m for 2022, up from £3.2m the previous year.
Neat Meet had planned to open a new venue within London’s 02 Arena.
And it has handed its Finsbury Park site to a third party ‘in line with our wider strategy to concentrate our efforts on smaller locations in areas with high footfall’.
Yet while business is struggling, that hasn’t stopped Neat Meat from opening a new store in Milan.
They also have sites in New York, USA and Mumbai, India.
On Neat Meat’s website, Hamilton highlights his decision to create a meat-free restaurant.
“We created the Neat Burger to make plant-based eating more accessible to everyone,” he said.
“Whether you eat plant-based foods all the time or just want to incorporate it into your diet every now and again.
“The response to Neat Burgers has been incredible since we launched.
“I’m really proud of the boundaries we’ve been able to push in this area and the expansion plans are really exciting.”
And DiCaprio’s message reads: “Disrupting our food system with sustainable alternatives is one of the key ways we can make a real difference in reducing global emissions.
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Lewis Hamilton is currently preparing for this weekend’s F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
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“Neat Burger’s pioneering approach to alternative-protein is a great example of the type of solutions we need moving forward.”
