A former employee told the Daily Mail that there have been a number of lay-offs over the past few months, and a gentle scaling back of operations.
The company, which was founded in 2000 and has in the past made factual programmes featuring Jonathan Dimbleby and Jacques Peretti, is now said to be considering focusing its output on Jamie programmes only.
Fresh One’s next set of accounts are also due to be filed tomorrow with Companies House are not expected to set champagne corks popping.
While a spokesman for the company admitted yesterday that the workforce had shrunk this year, he insisted there had been no large scale lay-offs.
‘There is no redundancy programme under way at Fresh One and we remain focused on creating great content like the popular Jamie’s Super Food programme,’ says a spokesman. ‘As with any production company, it is the nature of our business that we expand and shrink our workforce depending on production timings, which is why many of our employees are freelance.’
While Oliver remains one of our most popular television personalities, it hasn’t all been plain sailing business-wise. Earlier this year his much-trumpeted venture, Jamie At Home, which contracted agents to sell his cookware range at parties, had quietly ceased trading after racking up huge losses.
