Up to $1 million is owed to employees who lost their jobs last week when Wellington meat processing company Goulds Fine Foods went into liquidation.
The 55 employees have been paid their final wages but it will likely take weeks before redundancies and owning holiday leave are paid out.
LiquidatorsKPMG Restructuring and Insolvency took control of the company and its assets last week, and have now also taken over the building owned by Gould Bros.
KPMG partner Andrew Hawkes said between $750,000 and $1m was owed to staff, some of whom had worked for Goulds for more than 20 years.
The estimated value of the business and assets is about $6m.
Mr Hawkes said he expected most of the money owed to the former employees would be paid by the sale of the company.
He said KPMG had made it a priority to pay staff their wages for their final weeks worked.
"It might be a few weeks before [redundancy and holiday payouts] all gets settled,'' he said.
"We were pretty keen to get them some kind of payment so they could make ends meet. I think the staff were appreciative.
"It's really their holiday pay [and] redundancies that are outstanding. We would expect they would get a fair amount of that. I wouldn't want to say all, but they will get a good percentage of what they're owed.''
Staff were dismissed last week when the liquidators took over the business on Tuesday and revealed there was "no immediate cash'' available to continue trading.
Mr Hawkes said early indications from the company's records showed it had probably failed due to tough economic times and a failure to streamline costs.
He said there had been "a lot'' of interest from people wanting to buy Gold Bros, including some who would consider continuing the meet processing business.
"It's a good site and the building's got some value. There's definitely interest in both the plant and the building and some parties are interested in them both,'' Mr Hawkes said.
"It is a sad day when such an iconic Wellington business fails. The company has serviced many customers and employed many long serving local staff during its 60 year history.''
