Jamie Oliver

This article is about the celebrity chef. For the Welsh musician, see Jamie Oliver (musician).

Jamie Oliver MBE
Oliver in 2014
Born	James Trevor Oliver (1975-05-27) 27 May 1975 Clavering, Essex, England, UK
Education	Westminster Kingsway College
Spouse	Juliette Norton ​ (m. 2000)​
Children	4
Culinary career
Cooking style	Fresh and Organic, Italian cuisine, British cuisine and Vegetarian cuisine
Current restaurant(s) Fifteen Jamie's Italian
Television show(s) Oliver's Twist Jamie's School Dinners Jamie's Great Italian Escape The Naked Chef Jamie's Kitchen Jamie's Chef Jamie at Home Jamie's Fowl Dinners Jamie's Ministry of Food Jamie's American Road Trip Jamie's Family Christmas Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Jamie's Dream School Jamie Does... Jamie's 30-Minute Meals Jamie's 15 Minute Meals Jamie's Comfort Food
Website	jamieoliver.com

James Trevor "Jamie" Oliver, MBE (born 27 May 1975) is an English celebrity chef, restaurateur, and media personality known for his food-focused television shows, cookbooks and more recently his global campaign for better food education.

Early life

Oliver was born and raised in the village of Clavering. His parents run a pub/restaurant, The Cricketers, where he practiced cooking in the kitchen with his parents. He was educated at Newport Free Grammar School.

Oliver left school at age sixteen with two GCSE qualifications in Art and Geology and went on to attend Westminster Technical College now Westminster Kingsway College. He then earned a City & Guilds National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in home economics.

Career

Oliver cooking at one of the Scandic Hotels (2014)

His first job was a pastry chef at Antonio Carluccio's Neal Street restaurant, where he first gained experience with preparing Italian cuisine, and developed a relationship with his mentor Gennaro Contaldo. (Later in his career, Oliver employed Contaldo to help run his successful collection of high street restaurants, Jamie's Italian). Oliver moved to The River Café, Fulham, as a sous chef. It was there that he was noticed by the BBC in 1997, after making an unscripted appearance in a documentary about the restaurant, Christmas at the River Cafe. In 1999, his BBC show The Naked Chef débuted, and his cookbook became a #1 bestseller in the United Kingdom. That same year, Oliver was invited to prepare lunch for then–Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street.

In June 2000, Oliver became the face of the United Kingdom supermarket chain Sainsbury's, through an endorsement deal worth $2 million a year. In July 2011, after eleven years, the partnership between Oliver and Sainsbury's ended. The final television advertisement was for Christmas 2011.

After three series of Naked Chef programmes (The Naked Chef, Return of the Naked Chef & Happy Days with The Naked Chef) for the BBC, Oliver moved to Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, where his first series was a documentary, Jamie's Kitchen which followed the setting up of 15 restaurant in London. The restaurant, in Westland Place, London, continues to train young adults who have a disadvantaged background for careers in the restaurant business.

In June 2003, Oliver was awarded an MBE.

In 2005, Oliver initiated a campaign originally called Feed Me Better to move British schoolchildren towards eating healthy foods and cutting out junk food. As a result, the British government also pledged to address the issue. Delving into politics to push for changes in nutrition resulted in people voting him as the "Most Inspiring Political Figure of 2005," according to a Channel 4 News annual viewer poll. His emphasis on cooking fresh, nutritious food continued as he created Jamie's Ministry of Food, a television series where Oliver travelled to inspire everyday people in Rotherham, Yorkshire, to cook healthy meals. Another television series is Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (2010–11), where he traveled first to Huntington, West Virginia and then to Los Angeles, California to change the way Americans eat, and address their dependence on fast food.

In June 2007, threats against Oliver's charitable foundation 15 Cornwall were made by Cornish nationalists.

Oliver's holding company, Jamie Oliver Holdings Ltd., earned enough for Oliver to have been listed on The Sunday Times list of richest Britons under 30.

Burgers at Jamie's Italian at Oxford

In June 2008, he launched a restaurant called Jamie's Italian, his first high-street business venture, in Oxford, England. Jamie's Italian has proved successful and there are now 35 restaurants in the collection. The brand has been franchised globally and now includes branches in the UAE, Australia, Ireland, Russia, Turkey, Singapore and Hong Kong. Dozens more are planned over the next 4 years. In December 2009, Oliver received the 2010 TED Prize.

In January 2013, Oliver started the Food Tube digital TV platform as a means to promote new cooking talent. In June 2014, three of Food Tube's stars - DJ BBQ, KerryAnn Dunlop (one of the original Fifteen apprentices from 2002) and Cupcake Jemma - published their own cookery books through publisher Penguin Books. Oliver hosts Jamie's 15 Minute Meals on Channel 4, which aired for 40 episodes in 2012.

Advertising

From June 2000, Oliver was the public face of the Sainsbury's supermarket chain in the UK, appearing on television and radio advertisements and in-store promotional material. The deal earned him an estimated £1.2 million every year although neither Sainsburys nor Oliver ever discussed the exact figure.

By 2004, the company had made 65 advertisements with him, but this arrangement has not been without controversy. Oliver was reported to have admitted that he does not use supermarkets, saying "For any chef, supermarkets are like a factory. I buy from specialist growers, organic suppliers and farmers". He was also said to have been criticised by Sainsbury's CEO Justin King when he slammed the "junk" sold by supermarkets that ends up in the lunchboxes of millions of children. King reportedly hit back, saying: "Dictating to people—or unleashing an expletive-filled tirade—is not the way to get engagement."

Oliver also markets a line of non-stick pans and cookware for Tefal and has appeared in Australian television commercials for Yalumba wines, using Del Boy's catchphrase of "Lovely Jubbly".

In August 2013, Oliver and Canadian supermarket chain Sobeys announced a partnership in improving nationwide nutrition and advertising campaigns. In October 2013, he began a partnership with the Australian supermarket chain Woolworths Supermarkets on a series of better nutrition initiatives and advertising campaigns.

Television shows

Year	Programme	Description/Notes
1999-2001	The Naked Chef	3 series plus 3 specials Oliver's first series. The title was a reference to the simplicity of Oliver's recipes and has nothing to do with nudity. Oliver has frequently admitted that he was not entirely happy with the title, which was devised by producer Patricia Llewellyn. In the UK edit of the show, the opening titles include a clip of him telling an unseen questioner, "No way! It's not me, it's the food!" The success of the programme led to the books "The Naked Chef" (1999) Return of the Naked Chef (2000) and Happy Days with the Naked Chef (2001).
2000	Pukka Tukka	Channel 4 special
2002	Oliver's Twist	52 episodes
	Jamie's Kitchen	A five-part 2002 documentary series. It followed Oliver as he attempted to train a group of disadvantaged youths, who would, if they completed the course, be offered jobs at Oliver's new restaurant "Fifteen" in Westland Place, London, N1.
2003	Return to Jamie's Kitchen	2 episodes
2005	Jamie's School Dinners	A four-part documentary series. Oliver took responsibility for running the kitchen meals in Kidbrooke School, Greenwich, for a year. Disgusted by the unhealthy food being served to schoolchildren and the lack of healthy alternatives on offer, Oliver began a campaign to improve the standard of Britain’s school meals. Public awareness was raised and subsequently the British Government pledged to spend £280m on school dinners (spread over three years). Tony Blair acknowledged that this was a result of Oliver's campaign. Following the success of the campaign, Oliver was named "Most Inspiring Political Figure of 2005" in the Channel 4 Political Awards 2006. In episode 2 of Jamie's School Dinners, Oliver's Fifteen London restaurant was visited by former US President Bill Clinton, who asked to see Oliver. Oliver declined. 36 people showed up for a booking of 20 and many of them were on a South Beach Diet and refused the special menu that had been prepared, although it had been approved in advance.
	Jamie's Great Italian Escape	A six-part travelogue series, was first broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain in October 2005. It follows Oliver as he travels around Italy in a blue VW van (plus a trailer for cooking). He is about to turn 30 and this is his personal adventure to rediscover his love of cooking.
2006	Jamie's Kitchen Australia	10 episodes
2007	Jamie's Chef	A four-part series continuing where Jamie's Kitchen left off. Five years and fifty trainees later, this series aims to help the winning trainee establish their own restaurant at The Cock, a pub near Braintree, Essex. The charitable Fifteen Foundation retains ownership of the property and has provided a £125,000 loan for the winner, Aaron Craze, to refurbish the establishment. As of 13 January 2008, the Cock has closed down and reopened as a regular pub.
	Jamie's Return to School Dinners (2007)	One-off programme which revisits some of the schools from the earlier School Dinners series as well as exploring how rural schools without kitchens can improvise to ensure children get a hot, nutritious meal during the school day.
	Jamie at Home	Featured Oliver presenting home-style recipes and gardening tips, with many ingredients coming from his substantial home garden in Clavering, Essex. Jamie at Home airs on the Food Network in the United States. Due to licensing restrictions, only two recipes from each Jamie at Home episode appear online; also, access to recipes is limited to users within the United States.
2008	Jamie's Fowl Dinners	A special with Jamie backing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "Hugh's Chicken Run" in trying to get the British to eat free range chickens.
	Jamie's Ministry of Food	A four-part series that aired from 30 September to 21 October 2008; based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Oliver aimed to make the town "the culinary capital of the United Kingdom" and tried to get the town's inhabitants to learn how to cook fresh food and establish healthy eating as part of daily life. The 'Pass It On' campaign also featured in this series with the local townspeople being taught one of a selection of recipes and passing it on to family members and friends. The 'Pass It On' campaign gained a following on the social networking website Facebook which has a group and fan page with users signing up to chart their progress. As a result of the series, the first Ministry of Food Centre was set up in Rotherham offering cooking classes to local people. Further Ministry of Food Centres have opened across the UK and in Australia.
	What's Cooking? with Jamie Oliver	Video game
2009	Jamie Saves Our Bacon	Part of Channel 4's British Food Fight Season, a thematic sequel to Jamie's Fowl Dinners. In the special, Oliver looks at the state of pig farming in the UK and EU. It was broadcast on 29 January 2009.
	Jamie's American Road Trip	A Channel 4 series following Oliver in the US, where he meets and learns from cooks at street stalls, off-road diners and down-to-earth local restaurants. Along the way, he picks up new recipes and learns how other cultures adapt when they come to the USA.
	Jamie's Family Christmas	A short series (5 episodes) on Channel 4 with Oliver cooking traditional and new Christmas dishes. Unusually, the series includes members of Oliver's family: a family member (wife, children, sister etc.) appears in a supporting role with the preparation of particular recipe interspersed with more traditional Jamie alone delivery to an off-camera person. First broadcast 15 December 2009.
2010-2011	Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution	A series that aired during 2010 and 2011 on ABC in the United States. In the first season, Oliver visited Huntington, West Virginia, statistically one of the unhealthiest cities in the US, to try to improve its residents' eating habits. In 2010, the show won an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Programme. In the second season Oliver visited Los Angeles, California, where his crusade to change school meals was met with resistance. Oliver was ultimately barred from filming at any Los Angeles public school. The show's cancellation was announced by ABC in May 2011, two weeks before the final episode of the season had aired. In one episode it showed what mechanically separated chicken looks like. The program also aired in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 under the title Jamie's American Food Revolution, Australia on Channel 10 under the original title, and in Malaysia on TLC channel (Astro Channel 707) under the original title.
	Jamie Does...	A Channel 4 series of 6 episodes following the success of Jamie's American Road Trip. Oliver travels across Europe and North Africa, cooking local dishes. Known as Jamie Oliver's Food Escapes in the US. Countries visited include Morocco, Spain, Greece, France, Italy and Sweden.
2010	Jamie's 30-Minute Meals	A Channel 4 series of 40 episodes aired during October–November. The programme focused on home-cooked meals that could be put together within the titular timeframe, using simple, 'not cheffy' techniques, with an emphasis on educating viewers about the cooking processes themselves.
2011	Jamie's Dream School	A Channel 4 series that looks at young people’s educational problems and attempts to uncover whether they are down to personal circumstance, society or the education system itself. It also examines how the new teachers get on as they try to translate their real-life expertise into the realities of the classroom. Professor Robert Winston, historian David Starkey, barrister Cherie Blair, journalist and political aide Alastair Campbell, actor Simon Callow, artist Rolf Harris, musician Jazzie B and Olympic gold medallist Daley Thompson all offer their opinions during the series. As a result of the series, many of the pupils return to education and one, Danielle Harold, pursues an acting career and wins a role in BBC's long-running EastEnders soap opera.
	Jamie's Fish Supper	A one-hour special show in which Oliver cooked 10 fish recipes as a part of Big Fish Fight campaign.
	Jamie Cooks Summer	A one-hour special in which Oliver cooked summer dishes in various outdoor locations.
	Jamie's Great Britain	A six-part series in which Oliver travels the length and breadth of the country in search of new ideas and inspiration for recipes and to find out what makes British food great.
2012	Jamie's 15-Minute Meals	With people becoming ever more time-poor, the 15-Minute Meals series showed, in real time, how delicious fresh meals could be put together in a quarter of an hour.
	Jamie & Jimmy's Food Fight Club	4 part series with childhood friend Jimmy Doherty. The series is based around a "studio" in a cafe at the end of Southend Pier, Essex which Jamie and Jimmy would visit as children. The series also involves "food fights" with other European countries - for example, a competition to see whether British artisanal beers and ales are better than their Belgian counterparts.
2013	Dream School USA	US -version of Jamie's Dream School with actor David Arquette in the mentoring role.
	Jamie's Money Saving Meals	Six-part series based on the recipes in the Save with Jamie book which aims to help people to save money while still cooking delicious food using fresh ingredients. A second series aired from June 2014 in the UK. Also known as Save with Jamie in some regions.
2014	Jamie & Jimmy's Friday Night Feast	Oliver and Doherty join forces again at their end-of-the-pier cafe to make top feasts for the weekend. This series focused on championing "lost" British classic foods such as the Bedfordshire Clanger and Maid of Honour Tarts.
	Jamie's Comfort Food	An eight part series based on the recipes in the Jamie's Comfort Food book which aims to teach people how to make rich, fun and delicious comfort food for larger groups.

Other television appearances

Oliver has twice guest-hosted Channel 4's The Friday Night Project and has made two appearances in the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" segment of BBC Two's Top Gear. In his first appearance he attempted to make a green salad in the back of his Volkswagen Microbus, which was fitted with a Porsche engine, while the Stig drove it around the Top Gear test track.

Oliver is the second British celebrity chef (after Robert Irvine) to appear as a challenger on Iron Chef America, taking on Iron Chef Mario Batali in 2008 in a losing battle with cobia as the theme ingredient.

Oliver was one of the judges in the Oprah's Big Give hosted by Oprah Winfrey in the United States in 2008.

Oliver guest starred as himself in the "Meatloaf Surprise" episode of Phineas and Ferb.

In 2012, Oliver appeared during Week 6 of the series on MasterChef Australia as the celebrity chef in the show's Immunity Challenge 5. Showcasing his skills, Oliver's board plate scored higher than the three contestants he was up against (all three judges scored Oliver a 9/10), thus preventing them from earning an Immunity Pin.

The Happy Days Live tour was Oliver's first live show in 2001 and included several dates in the UK and Australasia. Performing to sold-out venues, he cooked on stage and interacted with the audiences with competitions, music and special effects only usually seen in pop concerts. He took the audiences by surprise by singing and drumming to a song called Lamb Curry written by his longtime friend Leigh Haggerwood.

Oliver took to the road once more in 2006 on an Australian tour where he performed in Sydney and Melbourne. Following the entertaining format of his first live show, the 2006 Australian tour featuring special guests including mentor Gennaro Contaldo, and students from Fifteen London. He performed a new song written by Leigh Haggerwood called Fish Stew which Oliver cooked to and also drummed along to at the end of the show. The shows were considered by some to be a great success and are featured in a one-off TV documentary called Jamie Oliver: Australian Diary.

Controversies

In 2005, Oliver was widely criticised by animal rights groups for slaughtering a fully conscious lamb on his TV show, while PETA praised Oliver for showing the killing uncensored, stating that it highlighted problems with the methods used within slaughterhouses for viewers at home. PETA spokesman Sean Gifford said that it "could turn the more diehard carnivore into a vegetarian". British TV regulator Ofcom reported seven complaints from the public.

Jamie Oliver in Toronto 2010

Oliver has been known for his comments about other chefs and has spoken out against Marco Pierre White, who has been critical of Oliver in the past, and the swearing of Gordon Ramsay.

In 2005, Oliver embarked upon his school dinners campaign to improve the quality of food fed to pupils in schools. While the campaign was arguably successful, at the time it was a controversial shake-up for students and parents, some of whom believed that the students should have a healthy option available, but still be given the choice as to what they want to eat. In September 2006, Rawmarsh Community School, South Yorkshire, made headlines after a handful of parents including Julie Critchlow revolted against Oliver's nutritious lunch plan by delivering junk food from local shops to the pupils through the school fence. One parent dismissed Oliver's food as "disgusting rubbish" and declared, "Food is cheaper and better at the local takeaways".

In 2011, Oliver, an advocate of cooking meals from scratch and using local produce, caused controversy after it turned out the sauces used in Jamie's Italian in Glasgow were from an industrial park almost 400 miles away in Bicester. That same year, Oliver came under fire for lack of food safety protections in his restaurants and illnesses associated with under-cooking mince meat that may have been contaminated with E. coli.

In 2014 Oliver's central London butchery Barbecoa was voluntarily closed for 24 hours after hygiene inspectors gave it the second lowest rating. The Times reported they had found mouse droppings, mouldy carcasses and out-of-date meat.

Oliver and Gordon Ramsay are spokeschefs for the "Big Fish Fight", which campaigns for sustainable seafood, but were criticised for their use of endangered fish.

Oliver was criticised for underestimating the cost of supposedly cheap food he encouraged poor people to prepare for themselves, also for an unrealistic view of poverty in Britain and round the Mediterranean. Cookery writer and poverty campaigner Jack Monroe stated that Oliver's comments, "support damaging myths that poor people are only poor because they spend their money on the wrong things, rather than being constrained by time, equipment, knowledge or practicalities”. Monroe added, "When I was living on £10 a week for food, because of mistakes with housing benefit payments, I didn’t need a hug. I needed a fiver, just to have a little bit more to eat. I didn’t need [a trip] to Sicily to see how the street cleaners ate, I needed someone to point out that the 21p can of kidney beans could be the staple ingredient in a nutritious meal. I needed practical advice about what to do with the tins of food given to me by the food bank."

Charity and campaigning

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 Australian friend and fellow chef Tobie Puttock. Fifteen Melbourne has since closed.

Oliver then 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. His efforts brought the subject of school dinners to the political forefront and changed the types of food served in schools. In 2012, after supporting Scottish primary school blogger Martha Payne in her NeverSeconds blog, Oliver later assailed education secretary Michael Gove for failing to adhere to the standards agreed to by the previous administration.

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, Melbourne. State governments in Australia provided valuable 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" in order to "bring attention to the changes that the English, and now Americans, need to make in their lifestyles and diet." 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. He is a patron of environmental charity Trees for Cities.

In 2014, it was reported that Oliver had a net worth of £240 million.

Awards and honours

In June 2003, Oliver was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. 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. 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. In July 2010, Jamie regained the top spot and has been named as the most powerful and influential person in the UK hospitality industry once again.

In 2012, Oliver was honored by Harvard School of Public Health with the Healthy Cup Award for his substantial achievements in working to end the childhood obesity epidemic and in recognition of his campaigning to provide schoolchildren in the U.S. and U.K. with whole, freshly cooked food and inspiring millions of people around the world to become passionate about preparing delicious meals from scratch.

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.

Personal life

In July 2000, Oliver married Juliette Norton. The couple met in 1993 and have four children The family lives in Clavering, Essex.

Oliver has severe dyslexia, and read his first novel (Catching Fire) in 2013, at the age of 38.

Books

• Something for the Weekend, ISBN 0-14-102258-2
• The Naked Chef, ISBN 0-7868-6617-9
• The Return of the Naked Chef, ISBN 0-7181-4439-2
  • Published in America as The Naked Chef Takes Off, ISBN 0-7868-6755-8
• Happy Days with the Naked Chef, ISBN 0-7868-6852-X
• Jamie's Kitchen, ISBN 1-4013-0022-7
• Jamie's Dinners, ISBN 1-4013-0194-0
• Jamie's Italy, ISBN 0-7181-4770-7
• Cook With Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook , ISBN 0-7181-4771-5
• Jamie's Little Book of Big Treats, ISBN 0-14-103146-8
• Jamie at Home: Cook Your Way to the Good Life, ISBN 978-0-7181-5243-7
• Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours, ISBN 978-0-7181-4862-1
  • Published in America as Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, ISBN 978-1-4013-2359-2
• Jamie's Red Nose Recipes, ISBN 978-0-14-104178-0
• Jamie's America, ISBN 978-0-7181-5476-9
• Jamie does... Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France, ISBN 978-0-7181-5614-5
• Jamie's 30-Minute Meals, ISBN 978-0-7181-5477-6
• Jamie's Great Britain, ISBN 978-0-7181-5681-7
• Jamie's 15 Minute Meals, ISBN 978-0718157807
• Save With Jamie, ISBN 978-0718158149
• Jamie's Comfort Food, ISBN 978-0-7181-5953-5

Notes

• Jamie Oliver @ telegraph in The Telegraph
• Collected articles at The Guardian
• Oliver biography in BBC Online
• Q&A with the Naked Chef Jamie Oliver, 8 November 2007
• Oliver at the Chef and Restaurant Database
• 350 Years of Oliver's Family History
• Video of Oliver's talk at TED
• Oliver interviewed by Decca Aitkenhead in The Guardian October 2010.

Further reading

• List of social entrepreneurs
• Stafford Hildred, Jamie Oliver: The Biography (2001) ISBN 1-903402-55-7
• Gilly Smith, Jamie Oliver: Turning Up the Heat (2006) ISBN 0-233-00168-9
• Gilly Smith, Jamie Oliver: The Kitchen Crusader (2006) ISBN 978-1-86200-414-6

External links

• Official website
• Jamie Oliver at IMDb