Inside the creative team at Jamie Oliver

This week we are looking at the unique opportunities and challenges of being a creative working in-house. Here, former food stylist Sarah Tildesley talks to CR about her role heading up creative at Jamie Oliver and working with the nation’s most famous chef

It’s nearly 20 years since Jamie Oliver’s first cooking show, The Naked Chef, aired on BBC Two. The Essex chef now heads up a global business with restaurant, licensing and media arms and a Foundation that runs food education and nutrition campaigns (remember Jamie’s war on turkey twizzlers?)

The group has been under increased financial pressure in the past 12 months – it has been forced to close branches of Jamie’s Italian and Barbecoa along with all four of its Union Jack’s pizza restaurants – but remains one of the best-known food brands in the UK. Its main YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers and the Jamie Oliver website receives several million visits each month. Oliver’s latest cookbook 5 Ingredients also topped Amazon’s bestseller chart last year.

Sarah Tildesley is Head of Creative and Design at Jamie Oliver Ltd and heads up the group’s art department in London. Here she explains what a normal day is like at Jamie’s HQ.