James Trevor Oliver MBE OSI is an English restaurateur and cookbook author.
54 Facts About Jamie Oliver
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Jamie Oliver is known for his casual approach to cuisine, which has led him to front numerous television shows and open many restaurants.
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Jamie Oliver reached the public eye when his series The Naked Chef premiered in 1999.
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Jamie Oliver was the owner of a restaurant chain, Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group, which opened its first restaurant, Jamie's Italian, in Oxford in 2008.
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Jamie Oliver's TED Talk won him the 2010 TED Prize.
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In June 2003, Jamie Oliver was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for "services to the hospitality industry".
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Jamie Oliver was born and raised in the village of Clavering in Essex.
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Jamie Oliver left school at the age of 16 with two GCSE qualifications in art and geology and went on to attend Westminster Technical College.
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Oliver's first job was a pastry chef at Antonio Carluccio's Neal Street restaurant, where he first gained experience at preparing Italian cuisine, and developed a relationship with his mentor Gennaro Contaldo; later in his career Oliver employed Contaldo to help run his collection of high street restaurants, Jamie's Italian.
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Jamie Oliver moved to The River Cafe, Fulham, as a sous-chef.
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Jamie Oliver was noticed there by the BBC in 1997, after making an unscripted appearance in a documentary about the restaurant, Christmas at the River Cafe.
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That same year, Jamie Oliver was invited to prepare lunch for the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street.
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In June 2003, Jamie Oliver was awarded an MBE for his services to the hospitality industry.
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In 2005, Jamie Oliver initiated a campaign originally called "Feed Me Better" to move British schoolchildren towards eating healthy foods and cutting out junk food.
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Jamie Oliver hosted Jamie's 15 Minute Meals on Channel 4, which aired for 40 episodes in 2012.
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Jamie Oliver is the second-best-selling British author, behind JK Rowling, and the best-selling British non-fiction author since records began.
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In June 2008, Oliver launched a restaurant, Jamie's Italian, his first high street business venture, in Oxford, England.
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In 2011, Jamie Oliver set up Barbecoa, a barbecued meat-based restaurant with his friend, American barbecue expert Adam Perry Lang.
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On 19 February 2018, Barbecoa Ltd went into administration, with Jamie Oliver immediately buying back the St Paul's site in a pre-packed agreement via a new subsidiary.
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In 2020 an employment tribunal ruled that Jamie Oliver's restaurants broke labour laws by failing to consult employees prior to making them redundant.
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From June 2000, Jamie Oliver became the public face of the Sainsbury's supermarket chain in the UK, appearing on television and radio advertisements and in-store promotional material.
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Jamie Oliver was reported to have admitted that he does not use supermarkets, despite regularly having "product placement" in his early TV series.
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Jamie Oliver criticised Sainsbury's CEO Justin King when Oliver slammed the "junk" sold by supermarkets that ends up in the lunchboxes of millions of children.
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In September 2018, Jamie Oliver created a series of recipes and tips for Tesco and participated in the promotion of the company's food products.
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In 2005, Jamie Oliver was widely criticised by animal rights groups for slaughtering a lamb on his TV show without first stunning it, with PETA stating that it showed to the public problems with the methods used within slaughterhouses.
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Jamie Oliver has commented on other chefs and has spoken out against Marco Pierre White, who has been critical of Jamie Oliver in the past, and the swearing of Gordon Ramsay.
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In 2005, Jamie Oliver embarked upon his school dinners campaign to improve the quality of food fed to pupils in schools.
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Jamie Oliver was criticised for underestimating the cost of supposedly cheap food he encouraged poor people to prepare for themselves, as well as for an unrealistic view of poverty in Britain and round the Mediterranean.
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In 2014, Jamie Oliver became the culinary face of Woolworths Supermarkets.
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Jamie Oliver came under strong criticism over the funding of the advertising surrounding his relationship with the supermarket.
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In February 2017, Jamie Oliver criticised the Red Tractor scheme, earning the ire of farming leaders, such as Minette Batters, the president of the NFU.
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Jamie Oliver conceived and established the Fifteen charity restaurant, where he trained disadvantaged young people to work in the hospitality industry.
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Jamie Oliver began a formal campaign to ban unhealthy food in British schools and to get children eating nutritious food instead.
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Jamie Oliver's efforts brought the subject of school dinners to the political forefront and changed the types of food served in schools.
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In December 2009, Jamie 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".
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Jamie Oliver is a patron of environmental charity Trees for Cities.
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In 2017, Jamie 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.
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In June 2003, Jamie Oliver was awarded the MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
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In 2006, Jamie Oliver dropped to second on the list behind fellow celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
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In July 2010, Jamie Oliver regained the top spot and was named as the most powerful and influential person in the UK hospitality industry .
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In 2013, Jamie 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.
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On 29 October 2015, Jamie Oliver was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of 100 Most Influential British Entrepreneurs.
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In 2019, Jamie Oliver was awarded the Order of the Star of Italy with the rank of Knight.
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In July 2000, Jamie Oliver married former model and writer Juliette Norton, usually known as "Jools".
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Jamie Oliver has severe dyslexia, and read his first novel, Catching Fire, by American novelist Suzanne Collins in 2013, at the age of 38.
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In 2015 Jamie Oliver told The Times magazine that he had lost 2 stone in three months by changing his diet and getting enough sleep.
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Jamie Oliver was chosen by Disney Pixar to provide the British English voice of the health inspector in the 2007 animated movie Ratatouille.
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Jamie 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.
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Jamie Oliver is the second British celebrity chef 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.
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Jamie Oliver was one of the judges in the Oprah's Big Give hosted by Oprah Winfrey in the United States in 2008.
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Jamie Oliver took the audiences by surprise by singing and drumming to a song called Lamb Curry written by his longtime friend Leigh Haggerwood.
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Jamie Oliver took to the road once more in 2006 on an Australian tour where he performed in Sydney and Melbourne.
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Jamie Oliver performed a new song written by Leigh Haggerwood called Fish Stew which Oliver cooked to and drummed along to at the end of the show.
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On 27 December 2022 Jamie Oliver was the Guest Editor on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4.