Jamie Oliver
Jamie Trevor Oliver MBE OSI (born 27 May 1975)[2] is an English celebrity chef, former restaurateur and cookbook author.[3] He is known for his casual approach to cuisine, which has led him to front numerous television shows and open many restaurants.
This article is about the celebrity chef. For the Welsh musician, see Jamie Oliver (musician). For the Spanish boxer, see Jaime Oliver.
Oliver reached the public eye when his series The Naked Chef premiered in 1999. In 2005, he opened a campaign, Feed Me Better, to introduce schoolchildren to healthier foods, which was later backed by the government. He was the owner of a restaurant chain, Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, which opened its first restaurant, Jamie's Italian, in Oxford in 2008. The chain went into administration in May 2019.[4]
His TED Talk won him the 2010 TED Prize. In June 2003, Oliver was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "services to the hospitality industry".[5]
Early life[edit]
Jamie Trevor Oliver[2] was born and raised in Clavering, Essex.[6][7] His parents, Trevor and Sally Oliver, ran a pub/restaurant, the Cricketers, where he practised cooking in the kitchen with his parents.[8] He has one sibling, sister Anne-Marie, and he was educated at Newport Free Grammar School.[9]
He left school at the age of 16 with two GCSE qualifications in art and geology[10] and went on to attend Westminster Technical College (now Westminster Kingsway College).[8] He earned a City & Guilds National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in home economics.[11]
Charity work and campaigning[edit]
Oliver conceived and established the Fifteen charity restaurant, where he trained disadvantaged young people to work in the hospitality industry. Following the success of the original restaurant in London, more Fifteens have opened around the globe: Fifteen Amsterdam opened in December 2004, Fifteen Cornwall in Newquay in May 2006 and Fifteen Melbourne in September 2006 with an Australian friend and fellow chef Tobie Puttock.[72] Fifteen Melbourne has since closed, as has Fifteen Cornwall.[73][74]
Oliver began a formal campaign to ban unhealthy food in British schools and to get children eating nutritious food instead. Oliver's efforts to bring radical change to the school meals system, chronicled in the series Jamie's School Dinners, challenged the junk-food culture by showing schools they could serve healthy, cost-efficient meals that kids enjoyed eating.[75] His efforts brought the subject of school dinners to the political forefront and changed the types of food served in schools.[76]
Oliver's Ministry of Food campaign began in 2008 with the Channel 4 series of the same name and the opening of the first Ministry of Food Centre in Rotherham. More MoF Centres have since opened in Bradford, Leeds, Newcastle/North-East, Stratford (now known as Food Academy) and Alnwick. Ministry of Food Centres and trucks have opened in Australia in Ipswich, near Brisbane and Geelong, near Melbourne. State governments in Australia provided funding for these Centres.
In December 2009, Oliver was awarded the 2010 TED Prize for his campaigns to "create change on both the individual and governmental levels" to "bring attention to the changes that the English, and now Americans, need to make in their lifestyles and diet".[22] In 2010, he joined several other celebrity chefs on the series The Big Fish Fight, in which Oliver and fellow chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay made a variety of programmes to raise awareness about the discarding of hundreds of thousands of saltwater fish because the fishermen are prohibited from keeping any fish other than the stated target of the trawl.[77] He is a patron of environmental charity Trees for Cities.[78]
Oliver's net worth was estimated in 2014 at £240 million.[79]
In 2017, Oliver was approached by senior managers asking if he was interested in becoming a supporter for a campaign to tackle food waste called "Fresh Thinking for Forgotten Food" an idea invented by the British Domestic Appliance manufacturer Hotpoint. As well as the company allowing Oliver to have a free of charge Electric Single Oven and Gas Hob with their latest technologies to advertise. In 2018, Hotpoint built a pop up cafe based around on their campaign in London with Oliver opening it.
In January 2022, Oliver protested outside of Downing Street with an Eton mess dessert following a government decision to delay implementing parts of its obesity strategy.[80]
In April 2022, Oliver co-organized together with Ukrainian chef Yurii Kovryzhenko a charity dinner in London within an initiative #CookForUkraine to raise money for Ukrainians who suffered from Russian invasion of Ukraine.[81]
Awards and honours[edit]
On 13 May 2001, Oliver's series The Naked Chef won the BAFTA award for Best Feature at the prestigious 2001 British Academy Television Awards, held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London.[82]
In June 2003, Oliver was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.[83] A proponent of fresh organic foods, Oliver was named the most influential person in the UK hospitality industry when he topped the inaugural Caterersearch.com 100 in May 2005.[84] The list placed Oliver higher than Sir Francis Mackay, the then-chairman of the contract catering giant Compass Group, which Oliver had soundly criticised in Jamie's School Dinners. In 2006, Oliver dropped to second on the list behind fellow celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.[85] In July 2010, Oliver regained the top spot and was named as the most powerful and influential person in the UK hospitality industry once again.[86]
On 21 August 2010, Oliver won an Emmy for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution at the 62nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The series tackled the problem of childhood obesity in America.[87]
In 2013, Oliver was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal College of General Practitioners for his work in tackling childhood obesity by improving the nutritional value of school dinners.[88]
On 29 October 2015, Oliver was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 100 Most Influential British Entrepreneurs.[89][90]
In 2019, Oliver was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy with the rank of Knight.[91] The investiture took place at the Italian embassy in 2021.[92]
Personal life[edit]
In July 2000, Oliver married former model and writer Juliette Norton, usually known as "Jools".[93] They have five children:[94] Poppy Honey Rosie (born 18 March 2002), Daisy Boo Pamela (born 10 April 2003), Petal Blossom Rainbow (born 3 April 2009), Buddy Bear Maurice (born 15 September 2010), and River Rocket Blue Dallas (born 7 August 2016).[95]
Oliver has severe dyslexia, and read his first novel, Catching Fire, by American novelist Suzanne Collins (the second book in the three-book The Hunger Games series) in 2013, at the age of 38.[96]
During the summer of 2019, Jamie and his family moved into Spains Hall, the 16th-century mansion in Finchingfield, Essex. The £6m property is located on a 70-acre (28 ha) estate and includes a six-bedroom farmhouse, three-bedroom lodge, swimming pool, tennis court and converted stables.[97]