Jamie lays off staff and cuts back his TV empire
After Jamie Oliver told an interviewer earlier this year that he was trying to ‘ focus-in’ and ‘concentrate on cooking and writing’, there are now signs that the workaholic chef is finally reining in his hitherto expanding business empire.
I hear news of a recent shake-up at fresh One — the production company responsible for Oliver’s shows, including his current Channel 4 series Jamie’s Super food — of which he is the sole shareholder.
A former employee informs me there have been a number of lay-offs over the past few months, and a gentle scaling back of operations.
the company, which was founded in 2000 and has in the past made factual programmes featuring Jonathan Dimbleby and Jacques Peretti, is now said to be considering focusing its output on Jamie programmes only.
fresh One’s next set of accounts are also due to be filed tomorrow with Companies House, and I am told they are not expected to set champagne corks popping.
While a spokesman for the company admitted yesterday that the workforce had shrunk this year, he insisted there had been no large scale lay-offs.
‘there is no redundancy programme under way at fresh One and we remain focused on creating great content like the popular Jamie’s Super food programme,’ says a spokesman. ‘As with any production company, it is the nature of our business that we expand and shrink our workforce depending on production timings, which is why many of our employees are freelance.’
While Oliver remains one of our most popular television personalities, it hasn’t all been plain sailing businesswise. earlier this year, I revealed that his much-trumpeted venture, Jamie At Home, which contracted agents to sell his cookware range at parties, had quietly ceased trading after racking up huge losses.
At the weekend, it was claimed that a number of recipes in his new book, everyday Super food, appeared remarkably similar to recipes created by a number of best- selling female food writers.