The Body Shop is permanently closing its doors in Belgium

The Body Shop Belgium is not making a restart after the cosmetics chain in our country went bankrupt at the end of February. The stocks of the twelve stores have been sold to Dutch franchisees.

The Body Shop Belgium is permanently closing its doors in our country, according to the bankruptcy report of the cosmetics chain reported in the Dutch media. The curator’s report states that the chain is not restarting. A Dutch court declared the Belgian branch bankrupt at the end of February.

A Dutch curator will settle the bankruptcy, because the Belgian stores are legally part of the Dutch The Body Shop Benelux. The bankruptcy trustee attributes the failure of the possible restart to, among other things, the expiry of the franchise agreement for the Belgian stores.

The stocks of the Belgian stores have now been sold to Dutch franchisees of the chain for 140,000 euros. The curator is investigating whether the furnishings of the shops can also be sold.

The number of stores in our country had fallen from once around 20 to 12, with 66 employees. The 12 branches had a turnover of around 5 million euros per year between 2021 and 2023, the report shows. The loss had risen to 100,000 euros by 2022. Most stores, including the webshop, were already closed in our country.

The Body Shop was founded in 1976 in Brighton, southern England, by environmental activist Anita Roddick. She promoted natural products and spoke out strongly against animal testing. In 2006, the chain was taken over by the French cosmetics giant L’Oréal. Ten years later, she sold her to the Brazilian group Natura for 1 billion euros. In November last year, the German investment group Aurelius put $254 million on the table for The Body Shop.

The British and German divisions also filed for bankruptcy this year. Before the series of bankruptcies, The Body Shop had 900 stores in 20 countries and approximately 1,600 franchise locations in 69 countries.