Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones (born 7 November 1957) is a British businessman,

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

, and founder of "The Black Farmer" range of food products. He was an unsuccessful

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

candidate for the

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

constituency for the 2010 general election.Tories win Wiltshire with exception of Chippenham
BBC News, 7 May 2010

Early life

Emmanuel-Jones was born in

Clarendon, Jamaica Clarendon is a parish in Jamaica. It is located on the south of the island, roughly halfway between the island's eastern and western ends. Located in the county of Middlesex, it is bordered by Manchester on the west, Saint Catherine in the eas ...

, but in 1961 he moved with his parents to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. They settled in

Small Heath Small Heath is an area in south-east Birmingham, West Midlands, England situated on and around the Coventry Road about from the city centre. History Small Heath, which has been settled and used since Roman times, sits on top of a small hill. Th ...

in Birmingham, where he was one of nine children living in a small

terrace house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

Professional career

Television

After working in the catering industry Emmanuel-Jones enrolled on a training scheme that led to a job working for

Peter Bazalgette Sir Peter Lytton Bazalgette (; born 22 May 1953) is a British television executive and producer, best known for producing over 3000 episodes of BBC's Food and Drink and Ready, Steady, Cook. He was elected President of the Royal Television Societ ...

on the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

television series ''

Food and Drink ''Food and Drink'' is a British television series on BBC Two. First broadcast between 1982 and 2002, it was the first national television programme in the UK to cover the subject of food and drink without cookery and recipe demonstrations. Histo ...

''. He later continued to work in television, as a producer and director for 15 years and appeared in the

Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom ''Red Dwarf'' and formerly presented the engineering gameshow ''Scrapheap Challenge''. He ...

production ''

Carpool Carpooling (also car-sharing, ride-sharing and lift-sharing) is the sharing of car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves. By having more people usi ...

'' on 22 January 2010. ''Cameron's Black Tory'', shown on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

after the General Election on 6 June 2010, filmed Emmanuel-Jones over a four-year period in his bid to become the Conservative Party MP for the nominally

Liberal Democrat Several political party, political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democracy, liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties ...

seat of

Farming

Emmanuel-Jones' television career gave him the capital to buy Higher West Kitcham Farm, on the border of Devon and Cornwall in St Giles on the Heath, Launceston, which he continues to farm. He became known to the locals who helped him initially with farming as "The Black Farmer", which inspired him to set up the brand of the same name, whose products include awarding-winning sausages, chicken, ham and sauces. He has since become involved in setting up the Black Farmer Scholarship, which aims to help and encourage

ethnic minorities The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...

to work in the rural community, an area where to date they have been under-represented. This aim has been made into a

TV series, ''Young Black Farmers'', a series of three, which sees him take a group of nine

inner-city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists sometim ...

school leavers from ethnic minorities on a scholarship on his Devon farm. Emmanuel-Jones was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2020 New Year Honours The 2020 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebration ...

for services to British farming.

Business

Emmanuel-Jones set up a

marketing agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

in London, specializing in food brands, including Lloyd Grossman,

Kettle Chips Kettle Foods, Inc. is an American manufacturer of potato chips, based in Salem, Oregon, United States, with a European and Middle East headquarters in Norwich, United Kingdom. As of 2006 they were the largest natural potato chip brand in the U.S. ...

and

Plymouth Gin Plymouth Gin is a style and brand of gin that has been distilled on the same premises on the Barbican in Plymouth, Devon, since 1793. The site of production, the Plymouth Gin Distillery, was built in 1431 and is reputed to have once been a mo ...

Politics and personal life

Emmanuel-Jones failed to win the

constituency in the 2010 general election for the

. He revealed on

Question Time A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...

that he voted to leave the EU in the

2016 EU referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...

. He is married and the couple have a son and a daughter. He has an adult son from his first marriage.

References

Bibliography

Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, farmer and Conservative candidate
''The Independent'', 16 November 2006.
Sustainbility SouthwestA tale of two Tories
BBC News, 29 September 2006.
Save the Train

External links

Profile of Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones
Conservative Party)
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones talks about his entrepreneurial journey
YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Emmanuel-Jones, Wilfred 1957 births Living people English businesspeople English farmers English television personalities Jamaican emigrants to the United Kingdom English people of Welsh descent Black British politicians People from Small Heath, Birmingham Conservative Party (UK) parliamentary candidates Members of the Order of the British Empire Jamaican people of Welsh descent