Toronto-based restaurant chain Freshii made two major announcements on Thursday involving store closures and the resignation of the director of the company. 

In a press release, the company revealed their second quarter financial results which showed that 40 under-performing locations were forced to close within the quarter, ending on June 28. 

"The majority of these store closures were of locations with sales levels in 2019 that were significantly below Freshii's 2019 system wide average unit volume that both Freshii and the relevant franchise partner agreed were not well positioned to succeed in the pandemic or post-pandemic environment," the statement reads.

On top of that, they also reported a loss of $525,000 throughout the 13-week period compared to a profit of $433,000 during the same quarter last year. 

"While recognizing the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to present to our franchisees, employees, and the broader restaurant industry, we are encouraged by the improving sales and reopening trends we are now seeing each week in our restaurants," said chairman and chief executive officer Matthew Corrin. 

Following their financial findings, Freshii also announced that Marc Kielberger, co-founder of WE and director of the company, resigned "for personal reasons," effective Aug. 14. 

"The company thanks Marc for his contributions and perspectives shared during his time on the company's  board of directors." 

Kielberger and his WE Charity have been caught in a lot of controversy lately after it was discovered that the Liberal government paid it $43.5 million to operate a student grant program which has since been abandoned.