Jamie’s FoodTube revolution

I KNEW that Jamie Oliver was successful, of course. How could I not? I knew that he made television programmes and led social crusades and sold cookbooks by the container-load, that there was his website and his apps, that he’d won an Emmy in America, that the mortar and pestle my mum gave me for Christmas has his name on it, and that a rash of Jamie’s Italians have sprung up on high streets.

And yet, it turns out, I know hardly anything. I don’t know about his holding company, and the scale of the retail operation, and that his restaurant business has outlets opening in Brazil and India and China and Russia and who knows where else. I don’t know that Jamie’s Italian turns over €140m a year, the holding company another €40m a year. I’ve never even heard of Barbecoa, his barbecue chain, Recipease, his cooking school, Union Jacks, his fish and chips venture, Jamie’s Italian Trattorias, a restaurant sub-brand not to be confused with Jamie’s Italians.

Since we first saw him scooting around London in The Naked Chef, he’s become an entrepreneur worth an estimated €280m who employs 8,000 people. 8,000! And he’s in charge of it all. While still doing all the cheeky chappie stuff and still making cooking programmes and berating Michael Gove and banging on about people with big-screen TVs eating cheesy chips.