Future Food Stars

Synopsis

A press release came crashing through the roof.

In a brand-new series for BBC One, Gordon Ramsay will put a group of superstar entrepreneurs through a series of challenges inspired by his own career…and whoever impresses him most will win a life-changing opportunity.

Twelve food and drink entrepreneurs are put to the test, with the winner receiving a £150,000 investment in their business.

While on the large scale the format is basically a copy of The Apprentice, even directly replacing it in the same slot, most of the individual tasks hew closer to semi-finals week on Masterchef. And on the face of it, that makes sense. After all, this is a food show... except it's not necessarily that sort of food show. Most of the contestants are pitching readymade food brands, but the majority of the tasks seem geared toward would-be restaurateurs: organising a woodland banquet, filleting fish, running a breakfast service at Ramsay's restaurant and so on. Beyond the usual vague platitudes about the contestants needing to demonstrate adaptability and ability to cope under pressure, it's hard to see how most of these tasks are actually relevant.

And even worse are the gimmicky stunt-based tasks. Undoubtedly the thing people are going to remember this series for is that it made the opening test "Would you jump off a cliff if Gordon Ramsay told you to do it?", to which apparently everybody involved in this show, from the commissioning editor down to the contestants, thinks the appropriate answer is "yes". (Similar stunts had been executed on the American version of Hell's Kitchen, but at least Ramsay had installed a pair of actors to do so and then didn't make the rest of the cast do it.)

And then, just when you thought they'd got this absurdity out of their system and the format was settling down to something approaching sensible, they'd send the contestants caving to retrieve cheese stored underground (while Gordon himself just uses the front door) or have them deliver meals to climbers in hanging tents suspended over a gorge. When deciding who to send home, Gordon never mentioned their performance in these tasks as a factor, which on the one hand is a relief, because it really would be grossly unfair to send someone packing for the sin of claustrophobia, but also highlights just how spectacularly pointless these bits were.

The show was recommissioned before it aired, and thankfully the second series appears to have dropped the pointless stunts. But we'd still have to wonder why anyone would apply for this show when there's surely a much more attractive alternative available... no, not The Apprentice, but Dragons' Den. Unlike Future Food Stars it's not an "eleven people have to fail for one to succeed" set-up, it won't put you through weeks of irrelevant tasks, and if you do get an investment, it's likely to be on more favourable terms than this show is offering. And you don't have to put up with Gordon Ramsay. So that's just better all round, isn't it?

Champion

2022: Victoria Omobuwajo and her plantain-based vegan snack brand "Sunmo".
2023: Andy Albalous and his CBD olive oil brand "Drops of Heal".

Inventor

Gordon Ramsay

Theme music

Dru Masters

Trivia

Sometimes billed as Gordon Ramsay's Future Food Stars. And, by less-competent spellcheckers, Gordon Ramsey's Future Food Stars.

Casting for this show ran during March 2020, while the COVID pandemic hit. The show took two years to come to air, during which time Gordon Ramsay had made the massive flop Bank Balance.

Web links

BBC programme page

The first series publicised the hashtag #FFS, appropriately enough. The second went with #FutureFoodStars.

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