A MEAT firm was forced into liquidation yesterday after not being able to pay its debts.

The family-run Field Farm Fresh Ltd was formally wound up at London’s High Court.

It owed an undisclosed amount to Towers Thompson, an international food group that imports and exports frozen meat and poultry.

Last year the company’s debts were reported to be as high as £23m.

Matthew Watson, representing Towers Thompson, applied for a “usual compulsory order” winding up Field Farm Fresh in Netherton Road, Appleton.

Registrar Sally Barber formally made the order, handing the company’s affairs to an official receiver, who will sell any assets to try to pay off the debts and close the firm.

The company was owned by four brothers – David, Colin, Nigel and Richard Morgan – who had been farming in the village for 25 years.

The company was fined £35,000 in 2006 after being convicted of 15 offences of selling beef fillets claiming to be “Oxfordshire’s finest meats” that were actually Australian.

In 2011 the company had trouble paying staff, with employees claiming they were owed months of pay. Then David Morgan said he was taking High Court action against the firm’s previous bankers Barclays.

Last year, administrators removed several truckloads of cattle from the farm in order to try to pay the company’s debts.

Towers Thompson refused to comment.