As Gregg Wallace rose to fame, his background as a former Covent Garden market trader, a ‘blue-collar boy’ made good, became his stock in trade.
But as the MasterChef presenter marshalled his Cockney charms to create an appealing TV persona – ‘the fat, bald bloke off the telly who likes pudding’, as he once styled himself – the market traders he once worked alongside were left counting the cost of his success.
A former manager at George Allan’s Greengrocers, the company Wallace founded in 1989 and built into a business with a £7.5 million turnover, has revealed that the 60-year-old left behind £1.5 million in debt – and a host of disgruntled ex-colleagues – when the firm went under in 2000.
‘I worked with him for 20 years,’ Paul Schofield, who managed George Allan’s until 1999, told The Times. ‘He got more involved in radio and then TV, and took his eyes off the ball. He saw the future in TV rather than this, and the rest is history.
‘He owed about £1.5 million. Of course [people were angry], they’d probably get 10p in the pound at the creditor’s meeting, a cup of tea and a Rich Tea biscuit.’
For Wallace, who stepped away from MasterChef last week amid accusations of ‘highly inappropriate’ comments and behaviour, the company’s early success laid the foundations for a champagne lifestyle far removed from his humble upbringing in Peckham, south-east London.
But while he quaffed Cristal and Krug and put his (now adult) children, Tom and Libby, through private school, many of the workers he employed were saddled with debts running into the tens of thousands.
Market traders interviewed by the Times, some of whom had worked with Wallace for decades, described how they were left out in the cold when George Allan’s went under – quite literally in the case of employees who turned up for work one day only to find the business shuttered.
Gregg Wallace founded George Allan’s Greengrocers in 1989 and built the company into a business with a £7.5 million turnover
An employee moves boxes of fruit at New Covent Garden Market. Traders who worked with Wallace claim he left £1.5 million in debt when George Allan’s went under in 2000
Wallace stepped away from his role on the BBC show MasterChef last week amid accusations of ‘highly inappropriate’ comments and behaviour, which he denies
‘A lot of people were left to suffer the bill,’ said Mark James, who manages Mushroom Man, a New Covent Garden Market business, and was previously owner of Paris Express, which he says was owed £60,000 by George Allan’s when the firm crashed.
‘Back then that was worth double,’ said James. ‘That’s a big hit. There was no Christmas bonus that year.’
Alfie Lay, who owns Lays of Chelsea, a family business established in 1836 that also trades out of Covent Garden, said Wallace’s company followed a familiar trajectory.
‘He had a firm that started off like this and it just went giant, said Lay, 72. ‘I know him well from years ago, and you see it so many times – I’ve been on this market for 40 years.
‘You see these guys coming up from nowhere with their fancy ideas, and this and that, and it just goes into one big bubble and it burst, literally overnight.
‘I don’t know if he had 20 or 30 guys working for him. They all came to work on a Saturday morning to get their wages for the week and the gaff was all locked up. He had six units, it was a big firm – a lot of dough.’
Wallace’s representatives have been approached for comment.
In his 2012 autobiography, Life on a Plate, Wallace acknowledged: ‘We were owed millions and we owed millions to wholesalers in the market.
He also described how he ‘didn’t have to pick up all the bills personally’ after Gregg Allan’s failed, since it was a limited company, and hit back at the idea that fame had resulted in a loss of focus on his part.
‘Many of the traders had joined forces and said they refused to employ me,’ wrote Wallace. ‘It wasn’t fair but they blamed me for George Allan’s closure. They thought I’d got too fancy and big for my boots, being on telly now, and I let it all go to pot.
‘Nothing could’ve been further from the truth, though. It’s always the way: the last one out to turn off the lights, gets the blame.’
Shannon Kyle, the book’s ghostwriter, this week added her voice to the growing list of people who have come forward to allege past misconduct by Wallace.
Kyle, 47, claimed she was sexually harassed by Wallace while working on the book, citing instances of inappropriate touching and claiming the presenter exposed himself to her during a meeting at his flat.
‘I felt quite vulnerable because I’m on my own in a flat with a man [and] he’s naked,’ said Kyle, who was 35 at the time.
Wallace has consistently denied the claims against him.
‘Our client has denied that he has engaged in any such behaviour, and he specifically denies any sexual misconduct with Ms Kyle,’ said lawyers representing the presenter.
