Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

The winner of two annual Entrepreneur Awards, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is a classic entrepreneur with the “anything is possible” attitude to everything he approaches.  He is an inspiration to others and is an excellent conference keynote, after dinner speaker, and awards host.

Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is, in his words, ‘a poor boy, done good’.  He was born in Jamaica and following his parents move to the UK in the 50s, was raised in inner city Birmingham.  Unqualified but ambitious and persistent, he talked his way into television becoming a producer/director for the BBC.

He is credited with bringing many of the top celebrity chefs to the small screen including Gordon Ramsay, Antony Worrall-Thompson, Brian Turner and James Martin, before founding a food and drink marketing company in London.

Wilfred subsequently fulfilled a lifelong ambition in purchasing a small farm in Devon, and has been responsible for one of the most successful food launches of recent times in the UK with his own range of meat products under The Black Farmer® label.

Flavours without Frontiers – the promise offered by his products also goes some way to sum up his personality.  Neither he nor his products will be confined by race, convention or tradition.  Wilfred’s strong opinions on issues such as rural affairs, justice for small producers and giving ethnic minorities more opportunity have driven much media attention in recent times.

The Black Farmer launched a rural scholarship scheme through which young people from inner city communities are given the opportunity to experience what it is really like to live and work in the rural community.  This scheme was the subject of a Channel 4 Documentary.  In 2007 and 2008 Wilfred worked with the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester to run his City Farmers scheme.

In 2006 Wilfred was selected to represent the new Chippenham constituency for the Conservative party.  He was unsuccessful in his attempt to become the next MP for Chippenham, losing out to the Liberal Democrat candidate. Wilfred still believes that the political parties in the UK have a long way to go to encourage black people into their parties and those with political ambition have a high mountain to climb. But with the inspiration of Barack Obama's success, Wilfred's political journey is likely to be an interesting one!

He has published two books, the first The Black Farmer Cookbook – a journey through his life in recipes; and most recently (2018) the much acclaimed “Jeopardy – The Danger of Playing it Safe on the Path to Success”.

In 2018 Wilfred set up The Hatchery, an incubator scheme for young brands. The first brand to ‘hatch’ and hit the market has been Smorgasbord Swedish Meatballs, and the second, The Gym Kitchen is set for launch in September.

Whether talking on marketing and food, entrepreneurism or people opportunities, Wilfred is excellent.  He delivers conference keynote speeches as well as being an after dinner speaker and awards host.