Matthew Pictured on BBC Country File with John Craven
Club Host Matthew Kearsey-Lawson
Presenter - Host – Comedian – Food Judge - Award Winning Chef
Matthew is a multi-award winning, as seen on TV, Chef, Presenter, Judge, Host and Comedian. He has been appearing, presenting, judging and hosting a variety of live stages, radio and TV shows for over a decade.
Matthew has been featured on BBC TV programmes with the likes of John Craven, James Wong and on ITV with Adrian Edmondson. On BBC Radio Kent Matthew is a regular guest presenter and go to food expert. He has presented the Kent Food Report on Pat Marsh radio show and appeared on many other shows as guest expert.
On live stage shows Matthew is the regular presenter at the Kent County Show hosting the cookery stage and often combining that with live appearances on BBC Radio. He has recently hosted stages at Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge Castle food festivals. Other work includes presenting shows such as Dog Shows and various food markets to name a few. The judges of the National Taste Food awards made Tonbridge farmers market the best market in the UK citing the main reason for the edge over competitors to be ‘a lively and entertaining presenter on the food stage’.
As a host and comedian Matthew has worked for over 11 years at the famous 144Club (Kent’s Only Award-Winning Jazz Club). He appears regularly on BBC Radio with his comedy character aliases working with the likes of James Whale and Steve n Allen. Matthew has a track record in comedy having presented a comedy music show with his world leading musician brother Roan Kearsey-Lawson. Matthew is also an in-demand act for many W.I. groups and other groups, societies and associations.
As a food expert Matthew is a guest judge. Work includes being a senior judge on national fruit festivals, including recently at the Kent County Show ground tasting apples (hundreds of them!). He has also judged at Mid-Kent College and other education establishments and schools. Matthew has worked extensively for Produced in Kent being both judge and mentor to young chefs. In fact, the ‘Produced in Kent’ organisation created and awarded Matthew with a special award for his work in promoting young people and other businesses.
In the food industry Matthew started as a YTS boy on Gore farm in Kent via Hadlow College placement. He quickly became an expert in top fruit on the farm as well as developing all other farming skills (including his favourite Tractor Driving!) before becoming a farm manager when graduating. After farm managing Matthew worked for Tesco head office as a quality assurance top fruit specialist. From there he went on to become a senior manager at Opies (Pickles, Sauces etc as seen in your local supermarket) overseeing food tech Laboratories, Health and Safety, Product Development and Quality Assurance – a role which saw him travel the world to audit farms and products (the man from Opies, he say ‘Yes’). On from there Matthew took a senior management role at Frydays (one of the world’s largest egg producers supplying McDonalds to name a few) a role where he was responsible for the entire companies food quality, a leader on the British Egg Council and not forgetting overall manager of 75 farms and many sandwich filling plants.
Upon leaving the executive world of food conglomerates Matthew set up his own artisan food business, Kent Fine Foods. Now a multi-award-winning business Matthew creates award winning recipes and products, many of which have appeared on TV.
Matthew currently combines running Kent Fine Foods with his various Presenter, Judge, Host and Comedian roles.