Biggest influencers in foodservice: The top ten chefs to follow

Using the GlobalData Influencer platform, we’ve named ten of the most influential foodservice chefs on Twitter, based on their performance and engagement during Q3 2020.

10. Damian Wawrzyniak (@ChefConsultant)

Damian Wawrzyniak is a Polish chef who is best known for his promotion of Polish babka cake. Chef Damian is also the only Polish chef awarded with the Knights Cross honours by the President of Poland. He was named as UK Top 10 Food Pioneer by BBC Good Food.

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Twitter followers: 22,504
GlobalData influencer score: 68

 

9. Giada De Laurentiis (@GDeLaurentiis)

Giada De Laurentiis is an Italian-American Emmy award-winning chef, writer and television personality. She is the author of nine New York Times bestselling cookbooks, host of Food Network’s ‘Giada at Home’ and she also appears regularly as a contributor and guest co-host on NBC’s ‘Today’.

Twitter followers: 1,710,197
GlobalData influencer score: 69

 

8. Nigella Lawson (Nigella_Lawson)

Lawson is an English food writer and cooking show host. She began her work in the industry as a book reviewer and restaurant critic. She has also written cookbooks ‘How to Eat’, ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ and ‘Nigella Bites’.  She has hosted TV shows including ‘Nigella Bites’, ‘Nigella Feasts’, ‘Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen’ and ‘Nigella Express’.

Twitter followers: 2,673,698
GlobalData influencer score: 72

 

7. Joe Bandler (@ChefJoeBandler)

Bandler started off as a young chef then turned into a business consultant to restaurant owners. As well as this he has released cookbooks on ‘Joe’s bucket list’, while also contributing recipes as well as Kitchen Tools and Gizmos reviews on the website Sugar-Free Zone.

Twitter followers: 71,506
GlobalData Influencer score: 73

 

6. Jp McMahon (@mistereatgalway)

Jp McMahon is a chef, restaurateur, and author. He is culinary director of the EatGalway Restaurant Group and runs the Aniar Boutique Cookery School. Founding chair and director of the Galway Food Festival, Jp is an officially appointed Ambassador of Irish Food as well as receiving the only Michelin Star in the west of Ireland. He organises an annual international chef symposium entitled ‘Food on the Edge’ in Galway and writes a weekly column for the Irish Times.

Twitter followers: 20,488
GlobalData Influencer score: 76

 

5. Lesego Semenya (@LesDaChef)

South African celebrity chef Lesego Semenya is renowned for his best-seller cookbook’ Dijo: My Food, My Journey’ which was released in 2018. Semenya has also worked in radio, as a monthly guest on ‘The Great Escape’ on Metro FM and on Power FM on ‘Power Lunch’, as well as being a regular contributor for South African national newspaper City Press.

Twitter followers: 93,395
GlobalData Influencer score: 78

 

4. Gordon Ramsey (@GordonRamsay)

Gordon Ramsay OBE is a British chef, restaurateur, writer, and television personality. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total and currently hold a total of seven. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001.

Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, ‘The F Word’, and ‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’. Ramsay has released a number of books, many of which have become bestsellers around the world; including his autobiography, ‘Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen’. In 2006, in recognition of all that Ramsay has contributed to the industry, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

Twitter followers: 7,449,262
GlobalData Influencer score: 79

 

3. Andrew Zimmern (@andrewzimmern)

A four-time James Beard Award-winning TV personality, chef, writer and teacher, Andrew Zimmern is regarded as one of the most knowledgeable personalities in the food world. Zimmern is known for being the co-creator, host, and consulting producer of the Travel Channel television series ’Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern’.

Zimmern is a contributing editor and award-winning monthly columnist at Mpls. St. Paul Magazine and a senior editor at Delta’s Sky Magazine, as well as a published author having written several books including ‘The Bizarre Truth: How I Walked out the Door Mouth First … and Came Back Shaking My Head’.

Twitter followers: 1,264,814
GlobalData Influencer score: 79

 

2. Zack Gallagher (@IrishFoodGuide)

Zack Gallagher is a chef, food writer and the founder of Irish Food Tours. As well as a
Blas na hEireann Irish Food Awards judge, Gallagher is one of Failte Ireland’s Food Ambassadors and is committed to the development, promotion and marketing of an all-Ireland Food Tourism network.

Twitter followers: 36,794
GlobalData Influencer score: 87

 

1. José Andrés (@chefjoseandres)

José Andrés is a Michelin-starred, James Beard Award-winning chef, and was named among Time’s “100 Most Influential People.” He is the founder and chairman of World Central Kitchen, the NGO behind #ChefsForPuertoRico, and cofounder of ThinkFoodGroup, which has more than thirty restaurants around the world.

Andrés is also the author of three cookbooks and the New York Times best-selling ‘We Fed an Island’, which describes how Andrés and his team cooked for hundreds of thousands of hungry Americans in Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria.

Twitter followers: 930,453
GlobalData Influencer score: 100