A POPULAR chef says he is facing a ‘very, very difficult time’ as costs soar.
Tom Kerridge, a Great British Menu judge and Michelin-starred chef based in Marlow, says he is facing a near 700% increase in electricity costs, although this will be reduced by the government’s new price cap pledge for six months.
“The whole of hospitality is facing a very, very difficult time at the minute,” he said.
“There’s lots of talk that seven out of 10 pubs are not going to survive unless the government does something quite rapidly and announce how they’re going to help with the cost of the energy crisis.
“There’s many small and wonderful pubs dotted up and down the country, in the centre of towns where the landlord lives upstairs.
“They may well eke out a bit of a living and may make £25,000-30,000 pounds a year, just about.
“But if you’ve got electricity bills that are doubling, trebling, three or four times it’s so hard. Our first quote for our electricity bill at the pub that I’m sitting in right now, it has gone up nearly 700%.”
In an interview during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster on GB News last week, he added: “Obviously, we haven’t decided what to do, we’re still looking around.
“But in those small pubs where the landlord makes a little bit of a living, if all of a sudden they’ve got an increase of £50,000, £60,000, or, £70,000 a year, then there’s no way those pubs are going to be able to operate.”
Speaking before the government announced it would offer an initial six-month energy bill relief scheme. This would reduce bills by half for the average business, starting from October.
Mr Kerridge said the issues he faced go beyond just the hospitality sector, as the whole supply chain was affected.
“The butchers, the fishmongers, the farmers, the veg growers – it is inevitable with food inflation that costs go up,” he said.
“And at the same time, the guests and the consumer at home has less money because of that food inflation and price inflation, it kind of like pulls everything apart.
“It’s going to be a very, very difficult couple of years.”
Announcing the energy price cap, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng said: “We have stepped in to stop businesses collapsing, protect jobs, and limit inflation.
“And with our plans to boost home-grown energy supply, we will bring security to the sector, growth to the economy and secure a better deal for consumers.”
