Cornflake Reviews 

The project was going well until it didn’t. The Cornflake team seemed to just lose interest and enthusiasm for what is a house-wide home automation project and their attention to it diminished, such that they needed to be cajoled and nagged to get things done. They were always paid promptly but their project manager and technical manager ended up just paying lip service to the outstanding programming works making its completion a miserable experience, which was further exacerbated by unmet promises from the director that this would get fixed. Deadlines were constantly missed and software bugs went unresolved for far too long. What started out as an enthusiastic commitment petered out into the inactions of a disinterested vendor. Perhaps the fact they had been paid in full was a reason for their loss of interest to get the project over the line towards the end. We won’t be using them again and would recommend to others that they look elsewhere for a more professional service.

The sudden lack of response from the Cornflake project team at the critical end stage of an incomplete home automation project has been extremely frustrating.

A lot of additional time & resource has had to be spent to try and establish what Cornflake system works (Crestron, Lutron, CCTV, Access Control, IT & AV) remain incomplete for the planned for final commissioning stage project visit, to then try and find other companies with the same expertise to step into the project to complete Cornflakes outstanding works and move the installed systems from project stage to operational support stage.

Not one of the Cornflake project team responded to requests for any kind of update, just eventually a forwarded email from the administrator with a package of incomplete and outdated project information.

Our experience with Cornflake has been extremely disappointing, particularly as they left our project unfinished at a critical stage. With key works still outstanding, including important testing, commissioning, and system completion, we were left without the support needed to bring the project over the line.

Despite repeated attempts to make contact by phone, email, and other channels, communication effectively stopped, leaving us with no clarity on next steps and significant disruption to an active project. Being left in this position so close to completion has created unnecessary stress, delays, and uncertainty.

While we understand businesses can face difficult circumstances, what has been most frustrating is the lack of accountability and the absence of any meaningful support or transition plan for existing clients with live projects. A project of this nature cannot simply be abandoned at such a crucial stage.

Sadly, based on our experience, we cannot recommend them.

Our experience following the company’s administration and subsequent acquisition by Ateliers de France has been extremely disappointing, particularly given the critical stage our project had reached at the time.

While the acquisition was presented publicly as a positive step and “business as usual,” this has unfortunately been far from our experience. We have effectively been left without contractor support to complete an important live project, with phone calls, emails, and correspondence consistently going unanswered.

The lack of communication and accountability has created significant uncertainty and disruption at a crucial stage of delivery. What is most frustrating is the contrast between the public messaging and the reality faced by existing clients and projects on the ground.

We had hoped the acquisition would provide stability and continuity, but sadly that has not been the case for us

Cornflake were placed in administration on the 17 April 2026. The new co is a "pre-pack". We had a relatively small but important subcontract with the old company which was due to complete in May. They ignored our attempts to contact them throughout the latter part of March and April despite Directors of their company being in a regularly used WhatsApp Group with ourselves and our Client. We have now received a letter from the new co advising that they will not be taking on the contract to completion leaving us with vital system updates, testing and commissioning to be completed in May and no contractor to do it. Whilst I sympathize with the situation they found themselves in, in this instance their contract price was a 1-1 negotiation last year so should have been profitable work to be taken on and we have always paid them on time. The new co's unwillingness to do so says a lot about their moral values.

The original company is no longer in business. A company with a similar name has been formed out of the ashes under the ultimate ownership of Ateliers de France, whilst creditors and clients of the original business have been deserted.

Cornflake Ltd (company number 06624584) entered Administration on 17 April 2026. Immediately thereafter the Administrator, Bretts Business Recovery, sold, by prior arrangement (in what is known as a “pre-packaged sale”), the IP, office furniture, etc, to a company called ADF Acquisition Co 1 Limited (“ADFA”, company number 17111369), which had been incorporated on 23 March 2026 explicitly for this purpose and whose shares are held indirectly by Groupe Ateliers de France (“GADF”). Employee contracts were transitioned simultaneously. ADFA appointed to its Board the MD of the original Cornflake entity (now a shell), and the Chief Administrative and Financial Officer at GADF, and then deftly changed its name on 21 April 2026 to Cornflake Group Ltd (“CGL”).

The above explanation contextualises the press statements made by GADF that it had acquired Cornflake. It did not. It had acquired (for a comparatively small consideration paid to Cornflake) selected assets out of that ailing company and placed them, along with Cornflake’s employees, within a new company with a remarkably similar name, Cornflake Group Ltd. GADF’s acquisition left various financial liabilities (and customer contracts – see below) in the original company for the Administrators to address as that entity inevitably transitions in due course to one in Liquidation.

Customer contracts that GADF and CGL evidently did not want, regardless of their significance to the clients and the impact on the properties / projects at which the automation systems contracted to Cornflake to develop were being implemented, were simply left behind in the original company, which now had no assets, resources or personnel, and so these incomplete projects were, in all respects, abandoned. No warning of this action was provided to at least one such client whose repeated attempts, both personally and via the main contractor, to reach the Cornflake project team working on the contract in question were studiously ignored. The now ex-client was simply provided with an electronic copy of the project file in its incomplete and un-commissioned state via the Administrators. Even a message sent to the director of the new company asking if it would take on the completion of the virtually finished project went unanswered. Yet, the relationship between this client and Cornflake’s team had always been cordial, collaborative and harmonious, with all Cornflake’s invoices paid promptly.

The MD of the original company, and now a director at the new “Cornflake” entity, is reported as stating that what has taken place “marks an important step forward for Cornflake…”. That statement is at odds with the corporate reality: Cornflake Ltd has ceased trading, is now in administration (as reported on the file at Companies House) and will eventually go into liquidation. Groupe Ateliers de France has simultaneously purchased some of Cornflake’s assets and parachuted them into a newco with a name which, to most observers, is much the same: “Cornflake Group” as opposed to “Cornflake”, thus giving the impression that it is business as usual, when what has really happened is that a variety of creditors will be left with unpaid debts and some longstanding and loyal customers now face serious project-related disruption (AV companies do not want to take on the works of others).

In sum, this is not, as is being trumpeted, an acquisition of a successful business but the cherry-picking of assets from within a company, Cornflake, that was presumably in serious financial trouble and has now been left in the shadows to be quietly buried. Future customers of the successor entity, Cornflake Group Ltd, will want to take note of the fact that, if the director and team that have moved across from the now defunct company to the new one are willing to turn their backs on clients and simply cut them loose, without even offering transitional assistance on equitable commercial terms, they are just as likely to do it again should the new company itself suffer the same fate. Once bitten, twice shy.