Leith, Prue
Focus on Food’s Founder Chair, Prue Leith, has been a tremendous friend to the Campaign since its launch in 1998.
Prue started her catering company, Leith’s Good Food, and opened the Michelin starred restaurant Leith’s in the 60s. In the 70s she added Leith’s School of Food and Wine to her portfolio and employed 500 people when she sold the three businesses in the 90s. Since then she has opened a training restaurant and catering college in South Africa, and a charitable training restaurant, the Hoxton Apprentice, in Hackney.
Until recently Prue chaired 3E’s, a not-for-profit company turning round failing state schools; she was on the quango that developed the National Vocational Qualifications and she chaired the British Food Trust which developed the Applied Ability Awards for chefs. Prue currently chairs the School Food Trust.
Previously a cookery columnist for the Daily Mail, Sunday Express, Guardian and Mirror, she has written twelve cookbooks, including, with Caroline Waldegrave, the best selling Leith’s Cookery Bible. She has presented an afternoon twenty-six part series for television and has been the subject of two documentaries, Take Six Cooks and The Best of British. Her most recent appearance has been the 2006 Great British Menu series on BBC1.