The scale of financial trouble led the company to borrow £1.5 million ($2.7 million) from the Prince’s Charities Foundation, accounts filed at the government registrar Companies House showed.

The records also showed that the Prince had been unable to give any profits from the business to the foundation for the past two years.

Last September, when UK grocery chain Waitrose moved in to save the struggling firm and adopt Duchy Originals as its own line, suggestions of a bailout were strenuously denied.

However, turnover for the 12 months to the end of March 2009 was £2.2 million ($3.9 million) , compared with £4 million  ($7 million) reported for the previous financial year.

The company had administrative expenses of £5.5 million, taking it £3.27 million into the red.

Prince Charles established the label 20 years ago to prove that there was a market for organic food and to use the profits to fund good causes.