Top chef Tom Kerridge says he is facing a 700% increase in electricity costs

TOP chef Tom Kerridge has spoken of his despair at facing a near 700% increase in electricity costs for his restaurant business.

Tom, a judge on Great British Menu, told GB News: “The whole of hospitality is facing a very, very difficult time at the minute.

“There’s lots of talk that seven out of ten 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 £25-30,000 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, 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, 60, £70,000 a year, then there’s no way those pubs are going to be able to operate.

“We need to look at what that business price cap is and unfortunately the supply chain also has that problem.

“The butchers, the fishmongers, the farmers, the veg growers – it is inevitable with food inflation that costs go up.

“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.”