Valk Fleet in administration as drivers remain unpaid and bosses receive ‘death threats’

The ugly side of the Uber economy – it might create economic opportunities, but when things go wrong it can be spectacularly brutal, as the fall-out of the bankruptcy of UK food logistics service Valk Fleet has shown. Scores of drivers remain unpaid; death threats are said to have been sent to management from disgruntled ex-employees – many of whom weren’t actual employees at all, but by definition self-employed which puts them in line with other creditors. So what went wrong? There is a veritable litany of causes, but severe overstaffing appears to crop up repeatedly, with a monthly wage bill that was regularly north of £700,000, while growth of the business was prized more highly than profitability. There are lessons in this TechCrunch article that e-commerce logistics providers can learn from.