Jamie Oliver’s new flagship London restaurant and the continuing popularity of his recipe books helped boost the turnover of the celebrity chef’s group during its latest financial year.
The group has reported a turnover of £27m for 2023 after posting a total of £23.6m for 2022, according to newly-filed accounts with Companies House.
Its sales were boosted by the opening of its new Catherine Street restaurant in central London towards the end of the year.
However, the group’s pre-tax profit dipped from £5.4m to £3.3m over the same period.
The company said the main reasons why its profit decreased was because of a rise in operating expenses as a result of an increase in staff costs due to “investment for future growth” and the additional operating and pre-opening costs of its new flagship restaurant.
The business includes all of Jamie Oliver’s media interests such as TV and digital production, book publishing, endorsements and royalty streams.
The firm added that there has been a “continued strong performance from back catalogue book titles, ongoing revenue flows from our endorsement contracts and our international television content distributor”.
From royalties, endorsements and licensing, the company generated a turnover of £18.3m in the year, up from £16.1m.
Its production income rose from £2.9m to £3.7m while turnover from its cookery school increased from £795,283 to £986,433.
The firm’s franchise income remained steady at £3.6m. It also made a turnover of £335,983 from its new flagship restaurant.
An interim dividend of £5m was paid by the company during the year, the same amount as in 2022.
The directors added that they do not recommend the payment of a final dividend.