The Bulletin INTERVIEW
The Big Interview:
Henry Dimbleby Life in a professional kitchen set Henry Dimbleby on a path to politics. Emma Scott meets the dedicated foodie poised to take on the system. According to E. M. Forster ‘one person with passion is better than forty people merely interested’. If this is true, the new National Food Strategy is off to a very promising start, because at its helm is culinary crusader Henry Dimbleby. I’ll confess to feeling slightly daunted at the prospect of interviewing this high-profile figurehead. After all, he was part of the team which created a restaurant chain with a turnover of more than £65.2m, co-authored the School Food Plan and has been tasked by the government to head up its new National Food Strategy. But professional success aside, it quickly becomes clear this is a man with an infectious passion not only for food but the entire food system. By the end of our conversation I am both inspired by his enthusiasm and suddenly rather hungry. It’s this quality, combined with an impressive CV, that makes Henry Dimbleby uniquely qualified for his latest role.
One in eight people in this country make their living from the food system and for 25 years Henry has been one of them. He started his career as a commis chef with Michelin-starred Bruno Loubet but soon found he was too messy for a professional kitchen. His unlikely next move was to The Daily Telegraph as a gossip columnist and from there he side-stepped to a management consultancy firm where he met John Vincent, his Leon co-founder. Henry says: “The purpose of Leon was to help people eat food that was delicious, that they enjoyed and that made them feel good. But through the process of starting the business and developing an understanding of the supply chain I became more interested in some of the broader issues around sustainability.” This soon led to the creation of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, a not-for-profit designed to help foodservice businesses work towards sustainability, November / December 2019 | 25
