London-based distributor CAKE has picked up international rights outside the UK to a new CBBC series called Cooking Buddies (10 x 20 minutes, pictured).

Putting a star-powered spin on the culinary content genre with headlining presenter Buddy Oliver—the 13-year-old son of English restaurateur and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver—this tween-skewing show will debut in the UK later this year. 

London-based Jamie Oliver Group is producing Cooking Buddies, with Samantha Beddoes (who has overseen all of Oliver’s TV content since 2017) attached as an EP. Sarah Muller, BBC Children’s senior head of commissioning for seven-plus, greenlit the show.

In each episode of the factual format, Buddy will tap into his food expertise as he meets other kids and teaches them how to whip up dishes such as pesto chicken, egg tortillas and pancakes. There will also be a “skill-swap” segment in which the young guests teach him something they’re good at—like basketball, street art, karate or salsa dancing.

The market is ripe for a project like Cooking Buddies, says CAKE CEO Ed Galton: Cooking reality shows have “become an everyday [co-viewing] norm with families,” indicating strong potential for a show that ages down to showcase cooking from a kid’s perspective.  

“Cooking is an international experience for everyone, so we see it working in lots of different markets,” says Galton. “The show is made up of kids from different cultures and culinary backgrounds with a wide variety of hobbies and interests. In addition, the Jamie Oliver brand is huge around the world, and that trickles down to Buddy, his brand and his established success on YouTube.”

The young chef already has an audience of roughly 134,000 subscribers simmering on his YouTube channel (also named Cooking Buddies), which features everything from recipes to food-inspired challenges. To date, it has generated more than seven million total views. 

Cooking-focused content for kids has also done quite well in recent years. The Tiny Chef Show adapted a niche digital brand into a full-fledged Nickelodeon series, and Alice’s Wonderland Bakery (Disney Junior) refreshed a legacy kids IP with a new food-forward storyline.