Author: Suren Prasad
TV celebrity Mary Berry’s net worth is estimated to be £15 million.
Born on March 24, 1935, Mary Berry’s culinary talents were first noticed and encouraged by her domestic science teacher at Bath High School. Berry then graduated from Bath College of Domestic Science in Catering and Institutional Management.
A 22-year-old Berry then worked at the Dutch Dairy Bureau, while also enrolling for evening courses of City & Guilds.
How did her culinary efforts make her a millionaire?
She was food editor for Housewife (1966) and later for Ideal Home (1970-1973).
Subsequently, Berry joined PR firm Benson’s as recipe tester and began penning her first book, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook (1970). Since then, she has served up over 70 cook books, selling more than 5,000,000 copies, which in the last eight years have earned her £2.3 million.
During the early 1970s, Berry also did her first TV series Afternoon Plus.
In 1994, along with daughter Annabel, Berry launched Mary Berry and Daughter Ltd. which sold Mary Berry’s Salad Dressing, her own product range. The company went on to stock its condiments in stores such as Tesco, Harrods and Fortnum & Mason across Germany, Ireland and Britain. The business profited by £1.076 million in 2012, with over £1 million in cash assets.
She won the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Guild of Food Writers in 2009.
Berry has been a judge and host for BBC2’s The Great British Bake Off partnering baking maestro Paul Hollywood since 2010 for which she earns about £200,000 per year. In addition, she also judges The Junior Bake Off, Comic Relief Bake Off and Sports Relief Bake Off.
Honoured with the CBE in 2012, Berry published Recipe for Life, her autobiography, in 2013.
In 2014, her own solo programme BBC’s Mary Berry Cooks began. She also launched a mobile app Mary Berry: In Mary We Trust which showcased her recipes.
Berry lives with her husband, Paul Hunnings, in their two-acre Buckinghamshire home which comprises a lake.
Recently, she sold her condiments company for £2.5 million to be divided among her children. The firm had made a £200,000 profit in the past 18 months.