Jamie Oliver – The Naked Truth?

So, unless your newsfeed has been turned off, you will know that Jamie Oliver is in trouble (well, at least a number of his associated companies are). If you open the many links, you will also have been given granular analysis as to why this is.

Brexit, exchange rates, uncertainty, location, growing too fast/too slow, incompetence; the list goes on. So, what is the reason behind the collapse of Jamie’s restaurant empire?

In December, Jamie pumped £3 million of his own cash into the centrepiece of his restaurant division, Jamie’s Italian, and in January the chain said it would close 12 of its 37 UK branches as part of a rescue deal with creditors to continue trading.

Figures are sketchy, but there is a believed trading deficiency of £30.2 million when taking into account loan facilities and backing from other Jamie Oliver companies.

In addition to this, 2 of Oliver’s flagship London based restaurants, Barbecoa, were placed into Administration and the St Pauls Cathedral site was purchased though a pre-pack arrangement by Oliver, as a going concern.

As someone who speaks to business owners and directors on a daily basis, often about companies that are facing problems, I was tasked to share some of my opinions about why Jamie Oliver has failed.

Okay, so at face value – probably a little bit of what everyone is already saying with an emphasis on market saturation and economies of scale working against a chain of that size serving up decent, freshly produced food.

But what I really have a problem with is the question “why did Jamie Oliver fail?”.  Truth is, Jamie Oliver has far from failed, but it appears that common perception is that when a company stumbles, the Directors are the devil.

The media dredge their archives for unflattering pictures with unkept hairstyles and frowns – where possible, one of his wife without make-up on, just to stir it.

Then there is the social media bandwagon, where I quote from my Linkedin feed “He couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery, he need to emerge from up his own arse and get real” [SIC].

Jamie Oliver is a 42-year-old global brand whose interests include TV, books, restaurants, licensing as well as foundations and interests in social and animal welfare causes; of note, his tireless campaign to feed the nations kids.

I don’t know Jamie, but I think it is a fair to say that he is not a failure, neither is he or his team inept. Things simply haven’t gone to plan- and that’s business.

Its seems that it is a common misconception that whenever a business fails that there is some sort of sinister act or catastrophic show of incompetence, orchestrated by its directors.

I often receive calls from creditors of companies that we have had to put forward for liquidation making claim that the director is somehow going to profit from the act of liquidating their livelihoods and leave their stakeholders drowning in the flood.

Now, I am not saying for a moment that the insolvency Services and IP’s up and down the country don’t come across that sort of gross misfeasance, but by and large, it is the directors themselves that are hardest hit.

So, in summary, “why did Jamie Oliver fail?” – I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that he has!