Jamie Oliver's Restaurants Went Bankrupt

2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29

Being a celebrity chef or a culinary TV guru is not always enough to make ends meet. Proof of this comes with the news that Jamie Oliver's restaurants announce bankruptcy.

Jamie Oliver rose to fame in the late 90's / early 2000's /. Using this as a springboard, he built a restaurant and media business, publishing dozens of books and discovering over 20 the restaurant.

Oliver started the Italian Jamie's in 2008 with an emphasis on natural nutrition with quality ingredients. But the industry has become increasingly crowded in recent years. Random chains are everywhere. Even fast food restaurants now offer fresh produce. This increases a lot of pressure on current players in the industry.

Jamie Oliver pours millions of pounds into business in recent years, but finally had to admit defeat to what he described last summer in an interview with the Financial Times as a "perfect storm" - from rising rents, wages, food costs, to the impact of Brexit and changing shopping habits.

The current trading environment for companies in the consumer sector is so difficult, said KPMG partner Will Wright, adding that it is impossible to stabilize the business or find new investors amid rising costs and "fragile consumer confidence."

Oliver is best known as a TV star, book author and activist. His show The Naked Chef, which first aired on the BBC, eventually made him very popular.

More recently, Oliver has focused on campaigns for schools to serve healthier lunches in the United Kingdom and the United States.

He was involved in advertising for supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury and opened restaurants abroad. He also works with Shell to deliver its food to petrol stations across the UK.

His restaurants were mixed. Jamie Oliver 's Pizzerias Union Jacks also collapsed, and the last one was closed in 2017.

Now all 25 Oliver's restaurant, with the exception of three, will be closed and about 1,000 employees will lose their jobs, according to KPMG, the company hired to run the business for creditors.

The other shops, Jamie's Italian restaurants and a restaurant Jamie's at Gatwick Airport will remain open indefinitely.

The BBC notes that some Jamie Oliver's restaurantsoperating under a separate franchise, along with some international versions of its businesses, also remain open.

Mr. Oliver's international restaurants and Fifteen Cornwall, a restaurant in the south-west of England that trains apprentice chefs and is run by a foundation, are unaffected.

Oliver's business has been facing difficulties for some time. In 2014, he shut down most of his restaurant business at Union Jack - and closed a ten-year magazine three years later. In the last year, the chef has invested £ 3 million of his own money to keep his current business at the restaurant. Alas, it seems not enough.

His British restaurants ran into financial trouble in 2016 and found themselves in such dire situations that Oliver had to inject millions from his own savings to save the business. Even then, he had to close about 20 restaurants and pizzerias in the coming months.

The group began looking for buyers late last year, and Jamie Oliver provided an additional $ 4 million, or about $ 5 million, of his own money this year to make the investment more attractive.

I'm devastated, Oliver wrote on Twitter. - I am deeply saddened by this result and I would like to thank all the people who have put their hearts and souls into this business over the years. Our priority in the coming hours and days is to work with those employees who have been laid off, providing all the support and help they need, he said.

All salaries of the restaurant staff will be paid by Tuesday, according to the administrator.