Food Critic Jay Rayner hits back at Jamie Oliver over unpaid suppliers
Food Critic Jay Rayner slams Jamie Oliver over unpaid suppliers.
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With the closure of Barbecoa steakhouses leaving £7 million worth of unpaid bills, Food critic Jay Rayner has spoken out on Twitter about the millions of pounds owed by Jamie Oliver's restaurant group.
This is outrageous. So @jamieoliver are you going to make sure every single one of your suppliers is paid? The fish supplier? The fruit and veg supplier? https://t.co/lBTmZwZsJC
— Jay Rayner (@jayrayner1) March 19, 2018
Public records reported on The Eater website have revealed that following the collapse of Jamie Oliver’s steak restaurant company Barby Limited (under which the Barbecoa brand operated) last month, £6.7 million is owed to the creditors of the company.
The Eater has also reported that further to Barby Limited entering administration, the suppliers associated with the St Paul’s site have not had any confirmation whether they will be paid the money that they are owed.
Jamie Oliver has subsequently created a new company which he has named One New Change Limited which is “a wholly owned subsidiary of Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group.” The new company has since purchased Jamie's flagship restaurant site which is situated near St Paul’s in the City which is continuing to trade as normal.
Upon hearing the news, restaurant critic Jay Rayner, who is one of several people to criticise the celebrity chef over the lack of assurances over his unpaid suppliers, tweeted to his 209,000 followers calling the situation “outrageous,” and asking Jamie Oliver if he would “make sure every single one of [his] suppliers is paid?”
The administrator’s proposal has outlined that the sale to One New Change Limited has “minimised the company’s liabilities as far as possible, preserved employment for a large proportion of the company’s staff and ensured that the administrators have achieved a better result for the company’s creditor’s as a whole...”
At the time of publishing, Barby Limited owes £3.7 million to HSBC with a further £3 million owed to unsecured creditors. In addition, hundreds of thousands of pounds are also owed to a number of restaurant suppliers such as Berry Bros. & Rudd, OpenTable, Natoora, Daily Fish Supplies amongst others.
A spokesperson for Jamie Oliver commented that "We are continuing to work with the majority of suppliers in Barbecoa St Paul’s and have agreed mutually consensual terms with them.”
So far, Jay's status has had 253 retweets, 648 likes and has yielded several comments, many of which are agreeing with him but his tweet did elicit responses from the likes of chef Antony Worrall-Thompson who said "Jay , get real , did you have a pop at Carillion’s directors, nobody wants to go into administration, shit happens, at least there are those prepared to put their name on the line, take a gamble, employ loads of staff #ifatfirstyoudontsuceed,trytryandtryagain"
By Emma Harrison
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