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Chef on a mission

Posted in Advertising, Latest reporters' blogs, Lucy Tesseras March 31st, 2008 by Lucy Tesseras

No longer can a celebrity chef just be content with making good food. Unless they are part of some kind of crusade against evil chicken farmers or junk food nasties being sold in schools they’re not worth their salt.

Jamie Oliver last week launched a new campaign for Sainsbury’s to teach parents how to make healthy and nutritious meals for the entire family for under £5.

It’s good to see that Sainsbury’s is making an effort, especially considering the supermarket’s lack of support for some of Jamie’s other pursuits.

At the beginning of the year, while on his mission to improve chicken welfare and fight for farmer’s rights in Jamie’s Foul Dinners, the celebrity chef said he was shocked and appalled that a spokesperson from Sainsbury’s failed to show up and listen to what he had to say.

It doesn’t pay to bite the hand that feeds you though and considering Jamie earns over £1 million a year from the supermarket it could have turned into a very expensive rant.

Sainsbury’s was also forced to take out several full page ads confirming the quality of its poultry. Why they didn’t just do this by featuring on Jamie’s show and saving all the kafuffle is anyone’s guess, but it seems Jamie had no choice but to grovel and apologise profusely for his outburst.

However hypocritical that is on Jamie’s part, it seems Sainsbury’s was more than happy to accept. The supermarket may shell out big bucks for his pearls of cooking wisdom and selling power, but that’s nothing compared to the £1 billion he helps boost sales by.

Either way, it’s a good campaign and if it will help parents to feed their children properly then who are we to complain.

It also ties in nicely with Jamie’s new four-part Channel 4 series set to launch this autumn in which he tackles the state of British cooking and tries to stop people eating ready meals.

Considering Sainsbury’s reportedly sells over a million ready meals a week, it’s possible they’re not going to be best pleased about his latest crusade either.