DID YOU KNOW? Gregg Wallace

The MasterChef judge and co-host of Eat Well For Less? (8pm, BBC1) is one of the most familiar faces on television. But here are some things you might not know about him…

He was born on October 17, 1964 in southeast London. He left school at 15, and began his career as a greengrocer in Covent Garden market.

In 1989, he started George Allan’s Greengrocers, which would eventually achieve a turnover of £7.5 million. On the back of his business success, he was asked to host Veg Talk on Radio 4 in 1997, with friend and fellow grocer Charlie Hicks. It ran for seven years, despite Charlie later confessing that he and Gregg presented the first few shows drunk.

His big television break was as the first presenter of the newly launched

Saturday Kitchen in 2002. He was replaced as host the following year by chef Antony Worrall Thompson. He opened two restaurants in London, Wallace & Co in Putney and Gregg’s Bar and

Grill in Bermondsey, but they struggled to thrive and Gregg was forced to close both in 2014. He has been married four times, and has two children from his second marriage. His current wife is Anne-Marie Sterpini, who is 21 years his junior. They met on Twitter in 2013 and married in August 2016, with Gregg’s MasterChef co-host,

John Torode, serving as best man.

If he hadn’t got into food, he would have liked to have been a history professor or an international rugby player. Gregg’s playing days may be over, but he has gained two rugby union coaching badges.