Jamie Oliver has revealed that he injected £13 million of his own money into his restaurant chain as it came close to collapse.
Since his restaurant chain came close to bankruptcy last year, the chef has closed 12 of the 37 restaurants and made about 600 staff redundant to continue operations.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Oliver said: “we had simply run out of cash.”
“And we hadn’t expected it. That is just not normal, in any business. You have quarterly meetings. You do board meetings. People supposed to manage that stuff should manage that stuff.”
“I had two hours to put money in and save it or the whole thing would go to shit that day or the next day,” he said. “It was as bad as that and as dramatic as that.”
Oliver injected £7.5 million into the restaurant business, before adding a further £5.2 million over the following months.
“I honestly don’t know [what happened],” he said, still unsure ten months later on what went wrong for Jamie’s Italian.
“We’re still trying to work it out, but I think that the senior management we had in place were trying to manage what they would call the perfect storm: rents, rates, the high street declining, food costs, Brexit, increase in the minimum wage. There was a lot going on.”
The chain was rescued via a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), which led to the closure of several stores.
Oliver admitted that 40 percent of his business ventures have not worked out and he has lost £90 million of his wealth since the year 2014.
The chef also defended his brother-in-law and the chief executive of Jamie Oliver Group, who has been accused of bullying staff.
“Do you know why I chose him? Because he’s many things. But he’s honest, and he’s fair. I absolutely trust him.”
“His job was to come in and clean up. He has done the hardest and most fabulous job. I’m not saying that because he’s my brother-in-law. I’m saying it because it’s a fact.”