SUPER-RICH Jamie Oliver will avoid paying most of the £83million debts run up by his failed restaurant chain – leaving taxpayers and small businesses to foot part of the bill.

Creditors will get just a small percentage of the money they’re owed by Jamie’s Italian after administrators KPMG announced there was a “significant shortfall” of cash.

A source at the firm said repayments are likely to be “a few pence” for every £1 owed.

Food suppliers and landlords will be left out of pocket, plus local councils who are owed £1.2million in business rates, which will be covered by taxpayers.

Staff who are owed money are considered “preferential creditors” and are likely to be paid in full – £328,379 in total.

But according to Jamie’s accounts, most of the debt is owed to 288 trade creditors.

The failed firm owes £90 to window cleaners in Manchester, £4,471 to cleaners in Cardiff, £2,461 to a lightbulb company in Oxfordshire and £26 to a small firm in Devon that supplies brown paper bags.

Food distribution giant Brakes, which supplies raw ingredients to restaurants, is owed more than £850,000.

PROFITS PLUNGED

TV chef Jamie, 44, closed 22 of his Jamie's Italian restaurants with the loss of 1,000 jobs in May last year after profits plunged.

He is still worth an estimated £100million thanks to his lucrative TV and cookbook deals.

In November, Jamie launched a new restaurant brand overseas called Jamie Oliver’s Kitchen, with the first sites opening in Bangkok and Bali.

Mr Oliver’s restaurant group operates 70 restaurants outside the UK through franchise agreements and said it planned to open another 19 this year.

According to the KPMG report, three Jamie’s Italian restaurants at Gatwick airport were sold to the catering company SSP for £550,000, with a further six leases on former Jamie’s Italian sites sold for about £1.5m.

According to a report from the Centre for Retail Research, Jamie’s Italian was the most high-profile collapse among a number of restaurant closures last year, with 11,280 job losses.

The CRR said it expected a further 12,000 job losses across the sector this year but that most of these would come from independent restaurants that lacked the financial firepower to reinvest in their businesses.

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