Shropshire Star

Jamie Oliver: It needs to be easier and cheaper to buy good food

Jamie wants it to be harder to buy poor quality food.

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Jamie Oliver (Ian West/PA)

TV chef Jamie Oliver has said tax rebates should be given to food companies that reformulate salt, fat and sugar “in an intelligent way”.

The 42-year-old, who has previously campaigned about sugar tax and school dinners, said if he was appointed Minister of Food for the UK the first item on his agenda would be making it more difficult for people to buy poor quality food.

He said: “I would make it easier and cheaper to buy fresh, real food, and make it more awkward and harder and more expensive to buy shit.

“I would give tax rebates to food companies that reformulate salt, fat and sugar in an intelligent way, and give choice to the consumer.

“So if you’re a shitty chicken shop, and you offer a salad with your kebab, or you use a less saturated fat for your chicken nuggets, you get a rates rebate.

“You can take the worst elements and practices away from junk food.”

Jamie Oliver (PA)

Oliver’s Channel 4 show with Jimmy Doherty, Jamie And Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast, returns this month.

Each episode includes a segment where the hosts campaign for a food or cause and Oliver said mutton and fish bellies are on his mind this series.

“We try to show the British public the value of asking for mutton at the butcher. That would make a huge difference to farming, and waste,” said the father-of-five.

He continued: “We looked at something that produces systematic waste, and that is fish belly. You start to total up the weight of all the bellies trimmed off just because we want our fish to look a certain way, and you start to realise there’s a humongous amount of waste created that could actually go to feeding people.”

:: Jamie And Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast is on Channel 4 on November 24.

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