Jamie Oliver Really Sorry For Sainsbury’s Nastiness
Then buzz it up
January 11th, 2008 at 11:30 by Stuart Heritage
It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong. Or a normal-sized man inexplicably born with a floppy tongue the size of a cow's, at least.
By which we mean Jamie Oliver. As you all probably know, Jamie Oliver's latest campaign has been to make a sort of middle-class poultry snuff film called Jamie's Fowl Dinners all about the horrific mistreatment of battery chickens, and part of that campaign has involved Jamie lashing out at Sainsbury's.
And then, um, realising that Sainsbury's pays him £1.2 million a year to wank about flogging mince pies, causing him to backtrack spectacularly in case he upset his bosses.
Even though you've all probably been watching Big Brother Celebrity Hijack on E4 instead (what's that? You haven't?) you'll probably be aware that Channel 4 is in the middle of a Food Season. Well, it's not so much a Food Season as a Put You Off Eating Anything Ever Again Season.
Channel 4's Food Season is three-pronged. First there's Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall showing how inhumane the battery chicken process is by, er, raising hundreds of battery chickens. Then there's tonight's Jamie's Fowl Dinners, which again is about the cruelty exposed to battery chickens - except that people will listen more to Jamie Oliver because, unlike Hugh, he looks like he washes occasionally.
Then, less relevantly, Gordon Ramsay - a man who advocates eating everything from horses to newborn babies' eyeballs on his ridiculous F-Word TV show - is going to cook some food and not mention battery chickens at all.
But back to Jamie Oliver. We all know that Jamie loves a good campaigning session, whether it's a campaign to make children eat food they obviously aren't interested in or a campaign to, um, wander about your enormous garden cooking food that one of your employees has sowed, grown and harvested for you. So when Jamie Oliver attacked the battery hen issue for Jamie's Fowl Dinners, he did so with an alarming amount of gusto.
So much gusto, in fact, that he pissed off his paymasters. You see, ahead of Jamie's Fowl Dinners, Jamie Oliver wanted to have a public debate about chicken farming with retailers, including Sainsbury's - the supermarket that pays him £1.2 million a year to advertise it by mooning around like a kind of oversized gammon-obsessed Edwardian Little Lord Fauntleroy. But Sainsbury's didn't show up, leading Jamie Oliver to howl the following angry diatribe:
"It is shocking that the people that I work for did not turn up on the day. I do not know why. The fact that your PR department has not even got the confidence to turn up and talk about what you do … how dare they not?"
Oddly enough, Sainsbury's has realised that it pays Jamie Oliver to gurn around babbling about its sausages and not to severely hurt its share prices by openly criticising its animal welfare record and so, after an apparently tense phonecall between Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury's boss Justin King, Jamie Oliver has written to everyone who works for the supermarket to apologise for his big gob:
"I am happy to confirm what I have said on several occasions: that Sainsbury's has the most to be proud of on this important animal welfare issue. Indeed I would not have continued working with Sainsbury's for so many years if I did not believe that you were showing real leadership. Your team have been particularly helpful."
With Jamie Oliver's Sainsbury's contract still up for renewal, it seems that this Jamie's Fowl Dinners fuss might have cost him a lucrative gig. Of course, the extent of the damage will be seen once Jamie's Fowl Dinners is broadcast on Channel 4 tonight - it looks like essential viewing for everyone.
Except us. We'll be watching Big Brother Celebrity Hijack instead. That Victor, he's nuff grep innit.
Read more:
Jamie Oliver says sorry to Sainsbury's staff over chicken outburst - Guardian
Related and recent:
- Jamie Oliver Abused By Schoolchildren
- Jamie Oliver Tries To Flog Own Invention
- Watch Out England, Jamie Oliver Thinks You’re All Quite Drunk
- Disturbing Friday Fun: Worst Commercial Ever
- Jamie Oliver Vs Some Chickens
- Jamie Oliver Causes More Pitt, Jolie, Aniston Spazzing
- Doctor Who To Feature In Sexy New Beano
- Oliver Stone Wants To Make Bush: The Movie
January 11th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
There have been some awkward moments, and there will probably be more, as humanity begins to awaken very slowly to the realization of what cruelty it has perpetrated unawares, in an almost sleep-walking state. A person might suffer acutely when a dear pet dies, and in truth there is nothing funny about it, but that same person usually has a total blank spot, a great vacancy of consciousness, concerning the immense numbers of livestock slaughtered every day, not just cruelly but heinously cruelly. No one drops a tear for them, hardly anyone even regrets it, but in the case of every helpless creature that is put to death there is that same pitiable situation, the same potential for aching sorrow as with the family pet, if only one were to see the killing actually happen. Luckily humanity is maturing, and is very, very gradually beginning to realize that cruelty has to go, that kindness is better than harmfulness, that giving and receiving are intended to be an endless loop of generosity. The women are beginning to teach these things to the men, natural intuition is beginning to reveal it more clearly to the women, and people in general are beginning (very tentatively) to bestow it on the animals. It must be.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Jeeze Harry, you make me wanna go out and strangle a cat. You had a good point and then went and ruined it all by being overly sentimental.
Women showing us ‘men’ the way? You must be 12 years old because when you grow up you will realise that women aren’t all that ’sugar and spice and all things nice’. Most if not all female vegetarians do so because of weight and dieting under the guise of not being able to eat cute animals but leather bags, shoes and vivisection are alright.
They will wear the skin but wont eat the flesh?
As for battery chickens. I only buy free range chickens and order vegetarian curry from take aways. If you can buy a chicken for 4 euro how much money was spent taking care of the chicken after you take away the profit, transport, food, packaging, plucking the feathers. I dont eat that kind of chicken mostly because it is disgusting but only partly because of the cruelty. If you want to reach people, crying ‘its cruel’ will only work on a very small amount of people. Telling them how disgusting it is and giving them a mental image will work far better.
January 11th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Anyone fancy a tasty tasy KFC?
January 11th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Hey Harry
I went to a pig slaughterhouse when I was a kid, I enjoyed sausages for tea that night and called em pig sticks.
We fed them, bred them, raised them, they are ours to do with as we please and you are too soppy and weak and to stop us. Now go find a corner to cry in while I dismember tonights meat.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Repeat after me: ‘It’s just an animal’. There. Better? Good. Now go and have a bacon sandwich.
January 12th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Harry is the new, in-house, touchy feely hippy. Most of his posts are like this. I like them for being “special”.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Oliver might earn a cool £1.2 million from his deal with Sainsbury’s, but according to the company itself, Oliver’s input is responsible for about £150 million of its £535 million profit.
It seems to me that as Oliver will never ever be short of a bob or two Sainsbury’s have way more to lose than Oliver. Even if they did not renew his contract in the summer, I’m sure some other supermarket giant would snap him up.
In which case, why did Oliver backpedal in his apology?
Surely if he’d really stuck to his guns and told Sainsbury’s to piss off then they’d have been fully co-operative, not wishing to see a rival emerge with vastly increased profits from using Oliver’s name.
In August 2006, Oliver was reported as being worth £58 million.
For the sacrifice of £1.2 it’s possible that he could have advanced the cause of animal welfare considerably.
Anyone care to put forward any theories as to why he didn’t commit fully?
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
KFC can’t beat that taste