The Derby-based firm, which until last month counted pubcos JD Wetherspoon and Greene King among its buyers, has called in KMPG to act as administrator.
The collapse follows an investigation by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) last month, which raised concerns over the company's compliance with food hygiene regulations.
The findings forced the company to halt production nationwide and prompted restaurants, hotels and pubs-including Wetherspoon-to swiftly withdraw the meat from its menus.
Chris Pole, a partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “The recent product recall and halt in operations has caused significant customer attrition and trading difficulties, which in turn has led the directors to take the decision to place the company into administration.
“Regrettably, with little prospect of production restarting on site, a total of 266 people have been made redundant. Our priority over the coming days will be to work with all affected employees to provide the assistance they need in claiming monies owed from the Redundancy Payments Office."
Pole added that KMPG will be seeking buyers for the business and its assets.
The FSA first uncovered serious concerns around hygiene when it visited Russell Hume's Birmingham site on 12 January. It followed this up by investigating the company's six other production sites in Liverpool, Birmingham, London, Boroughbridge, Exeter and Fife.
This led to its decision to make sure all operations and deliveries were stopped after uncovering "a more systemic and widespread problem which was more serious in terms of its scale and nature".
Russell Hume have called the action taken by the FSA unfair and “out of proportion”
Company directors told the BBC: "The fact that its investigations have become industry-wide and a number of other firms have also had issues strongly suggests there is a lack of clarity in the industry and in current FSA guidelines.
"Prior to this, we had a long, unblemished record for supplying quality meat products."
In reply to this, a spokesperson for the FSA said: “The Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland took proportionate action based on serious and widespread problems that were found at Russell Hume.
“We do not take these decisions lightly and we recognise this will be a worrying time for employees and their families. It is for food businesses to ensure the food they produce is safe and our role is to provide assurances that a business is meeting its responsibilities.
“Since then we have been working with the company to get assurances that their food safety management system met the legal requirements. As a result the Liverpool site was given permission to resume production on 5 February.
“Our investigation into Russell Hume remains ongoing.”