Gordon Ramsay to spend £10m on new restaurants... For more hospitality stories, see what the weekend papers say

Gordon Ramsay to spend £10m on new restaurants
Gordon Ramsay is spending £10m exporting his restaurants to USA and Europe. He will open the first of three new eateries in the USA next week. He will follow that with three more in continental Europe next year. He will open Gordon Ramsay at the London (NYC) hotel in Manhattan. It will be followed by Cielo in Boca Raton, Florida, and another in the London (LA) hotel in Los Angeles. – Sunday Times, 5 November

Starwood secretly aquires Whitbread stake
American property investor Starwood Capital has secretly acquired a stake of almost 3% in Whitbread. The stake building will fuel speculation that Whitbread is a bid target for the investment group. – Sunday Times, 5 November

Copthorne profits jump
Millennium & Copthorne posted soaring profits yesterday as the hotel group welcomed a good start to the Christmas build up. Pre-tax profits were up 39% to £23.2m in the three months to the end of September. – The Scotsman, 4 November

Jamie Oliver declares £5.9m earnings
Accounts filed at Companies House reveal that Jamie Oliver’s company Sweet As Candy earned £5.9m in pre-tax profits from TV royalties, book sales and advertising fees last year. The figure is an improvement on the £3.3m he earned in 2004. – The Observer, 5 November

Irish PM widow will not leave planned hotel site
The widow of former Irish prime minister Charles Haughey, has said she has no plans to leave her home at Kinsealy, despite imminent final approval for the development of a major luxury hotel, golf course and multimillion-euro homes on the site. – Irish Independent, 4 November

KFC commit to healthier fat
KFC declared this week it would no longer use trans-fats in most of its recipes throughout the USA. The decision by KFC has been greeted as a turning point by activists seeking to end the use of a fat they claim contributes to 20,000 deaths a year in Britain. – The Times, 4 November

Professor calls for ban on eating junk food on public transport
Professor Annie Anderson, director of the Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research at Dundee University, says eating junk food in public should be stigmatised in the same way as smoking. The nutritionist, who has advised the Scottish executive on school meals, believes that people should be banned from eating burgers and chips on public transport. – The Times (Scottish edition), 4 November

Gordon Ramsay accuses organic industry of being overpriced
Gordon Ramsay has launched a stinging attack on the organic food industry, accusing many products of being overpriced and over hyped. He also said that many overseas organic products bought in the UK were harmful to the environment because of the carbon dioxide produced by transporting them. –  Sunday Times (Irish edition), November 5.

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