Prue Leith is a cook and a writer of columns, cookbooks, novels and an autobiography. She is a strong supporter of the Campaign for Better Hospital Food and a persistent and successful lobbyist for higher hospital food standards. Prue received a CBE in 2010 for her services to school food and nutrition. She started and chaired the charity Focus on Food (now part of the Soil Association), which promotes healthy cooking on the curriculum, and she was the Chair of the School Food Trust, the Government Taskforce which helped improve school dinners and food education.
Prue is currently the patron of Let’s Get Cooking, which organises healthy cooking clubs in schools and a trustee of the charity Baby Taste Journey that encourages pregnant mothers to eat well and to wean children onto a healthy diet. She started in catering with Leith’s Good Food, followed by Leith’s Restaurant, which won a Michelin Star, and Leith’s School of Food and Wine. The group employed 500 people when she sold it in the nineties.
Prue is still Patron of the Prue Leith Chefs Academy In South Africa. She was named the Veuve Clicquot Business-Woman of the Year in 1990. For eleven years she was a judge the Great British Menu BBC2 series and will soon start her new role as a judge on the new Great British Bake Off on Channel 4.