Big Love, Bigger Offer - Jamie Oliver’s New Range
Andrew Bluett-Duncan
Director
This week there’s a new range from my chums at Kitchencraft, they have teamed up with Jamie Oliver who has designed a range of mainly serving pieces accompanied by jugs, mugs, plates, and bowls. Before I get to that though, earlier this week I found myself watching Simon Sinek (leadership expert and author) being interviewed by Steven Bartlett (entrepreneur, author, and podcast host), in which there was lots of interesting stuff. So, choosing what to mention here was quite hard. In the end, I decided on acts of service.
How to park your car
Simon tells the story of walking down a street in New York, and a chap was parking his car. It happened to be a huge space, big enough for two cars. He saw that the chap was parking right in the middle of it so he tapped on his window and said “just so you know there’s about 5’ behind you, if you move your car up or back you’ll make room for another car, I’ll guide you back if you like". The driver said 'no', turned his engine off, got out and walked away, leaving his car in the middle of the two car space.
What Sinek then says he would have liked to have said to him, was “May I offer you an observation? You live in, the world, there are other people in, the world. So, I’m just asking you to consider that somebody else might want to park there, and it's an act of service to move your car to make a little room for somebody you don’t know."
Asked by Bartlett “Do you think that individualism is hurting us?” he gets an unusually strong reaction from Sinek “YES, OF COURSE…. you want to know why we’re so lonely? Because we've architected our lives to be lonely. Of course it's hurting us. We are social animals who have over indexed on rugged individualism…."
I'm recounting this part of the conversation because I’ve found myself making awful judgements about people who park their car thus, and I wonder if you are in the same bracket? Has that bugger just selfishly parked like that and really doesn’t give a toss whether they are being inconsiderate? Just another example in a world where the individual is paramount, as Simon is claiming, or was there perhaps a very good reason? As with most things in life, the real answer is unlikely to be black or white, I think it’ll lie somewhere between those two extremes.
There may have been lots of very good reasons for the chap using up two spaces. He might have been a nervous new driver, he might have just found Simon's intervention so aggressive that he felt too uncomfortable to explain or to accede, he might have just had an almighty argument with his partner, and of course he might just have been grumpy selfish git. I worry that jumping to conclusions on any individual example without full knowledge of the facts reflects another growing trend of modern life.
But to Simon's point are we becoming a selfish society, where the individual is becoming more important, than the community in which we live and serve?*
*Talking of serving the community, three friends (Simon, Tim and Jacky) are part of the volunteer team of the Reigate Summer Festival '25 (Fri 20th- Sun 22nd June) , who give their time freely. I'll come back to this in a couple of weeks.
Ok to product
Jamie Oliver Big Love Collection
This slightly annoying name, shouldn’t put you off taking a look at this range. And, as Jamie seems to be a bit of a marmite person as well, neither should his name, being attached to it.
And, this is because I think it's rather lovely.
Actually, the names are not just slightly annoying, they're very annoying.
With Big Love Super Server, Big Love Showstopper Cakes Stand, Big Love Epic Roaster, all having superlatives in their names that are quite unnecessary and irritate the hell out of me….why? Because I think they could leave you, the customer, to make up your mind on whether the roaster they are offering is EPIC.
Anyway, despite the irritation that it engenders, allow me to point out one or two things that you may find interesting.
Firstly , and very sensibly, they have chosen stoneware to make these pieces from. And particularly for the large pieces I think this was a good choice rather than the more common, and cheaper pottery (sometimes called china) as it is far more chip resistant and less liable to break from thermal shock. I suppose also for things that get a lot of use, like their mugs, its also a sensible choice.
Secondly, the colours they’ve chosen are lovely subtle colours that harmonise well together, with the sagey green, a pale pink, and a pale yellow sitting very nicely beside each other. Which is what they intended, because mugs apart, you won't have a choice in colour.
If you want a jug then it’s a Big Love Joy Jug in green or nothing, if you’re after the Big Love Super Server, then it’s in yellow or nothing.
Thirdly, nearly everything is generous in size from the Super Server at 14” / 34cm diameter, the Bowl at 39cm x 32cm to the 41cm x 33cm Feast Platter, these are generous, to very big pieces.
And lastly, there are three wood pieces in the range to compliment the stoneware. A very large round serving board, a rectangular board, also huge and a pair of salad servers.
For the sake of completeness, in the range you'll also find
We are currently price matching John Lewis at 20% off and this week (until Friday 6th June 2025) if you buy two or more pieces from the range, you may have another 5% off. Just tell us who you are if coming into the shops or use code JAMIE5 if shopping online.
That's it for now.
I trust you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend.
Warm regards,
Andrew
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