A SUCCESS STORY: JAMIE OLIVER

Jamie Oliver is a world- famous British celebrity chef. He was born in 1975 in Clavering, Essex. He was lucky to have parents who ran a restaurant, The Cricketers. Jamie had a chance to practise cooking in the kitchen with his parents Trevor and Sally, and his two siblings, a brother and a sister. It was an early training for his dream career. He left school just before his 17th birthday and attended Westminster Catering College.

After he graduated from college, he worked at several jobs at prestigious, high-end restaurants in England and all around Europe. During the time he worked at a restaurant called The Riverside Café, he had a chance to make an appearance on a television documentary about British cuisine and food culture. It was then he was spotted by the famous television show producer, Pat Llewelyn. Llewelyn contacted him in no time to produce a television show of his own.

In 1999, he made his first TV show – the Naked Chef – with which he unfortunately became the target of many cruel critics, but the British audience adored this 21-year-old boy with a funny accent and an unusual and easy-going presenting style. He also wrote a cookbook which became a No. 1 bestseller in the United Kingdom. The same year, Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, invited him to prepare the dinner for a meeting with the Italian Prime Minister. This contributed to Oliver’s fame and popularity even more. Jamie Oliver proved to be a person of principle by refusing to be the face of many famous food and drink companies like Nestle and Coca Cola in their advertisements. However, his contract with the pro-organic supermarket Sainsbury’s has continued for a while.

The generous chef opened a charity restaurant in London called Fifteen. As part of a TV show, called Jamie's Kitchen, he trained fifteen young people with several disadvantages to work in the food business. The show became a huge success, and he opened many other Fifteen restaurants all over the world, from Sweden to Australia. Then around 2005, Jamie started his sensational Jamie's School Dinners TV series through which he campaigned to get healthier food in school canteens. Thanks to his campaign, the government authorities were persuaded to spend £300m on school dinners for the following five years.