Robert Oliver
Executive Director & Board Chair of Pacific Island Food Revolution
Robert Oliver is a New Zealand chef who was raised in Fiji and Samoa. He has developed restaurants in New York, Miami, Las Vegas and Sydney, “farm to table” resorts in the Caribbean and food programs feeding homeless people and African immigrants with AIDS in New York City. Robert returned to the South Pacific to write his first cookbook with Dr. Tracy Berno and Fijian photographer Shiri Ram. Written with a development mission to connect Pacific agriculture to the regions tourism sector, “Me’a Kai The Food and Flavours of the South Pacific” stunned the food world by winning top prize, “Best Cookbook in the World 2010”, at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris, considered to be the Oscars of cookbooks, beating the books from NOMA and The New York Times.
In 2015 “Me’a Kai” was deemed by the Frankfurt Bookfair to be the 3rdbest cookbook in the world in all categories for the years 1995-2015.In 2013, Robert and team released “Mea’ai Samoa: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Polynesia” (Random House) at the request of the Prime Minister of Samoa. This book won the “Best TV Chef Cookbook in the World 2013” at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in association with his television series REAL PASIFIK-a series that travels across the Pacific Islands connecting chefs to traditional cuisine and indigenous agriculture. Robert has shared his inspiring journey as a chef and advocate of local Pacific cuisine in TEDX Auckland in 2018 speaking on Recipes of Development and in TEDX Papeete on The Power of Cuisine.
Robert is Chef Ambassador for Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand, was a judge on the hit prime-time cooking show “My Kitchen Rules New Zealand” in 2014 and 2015, and in 2015 was co-host for the Maori reality cooking show “Marae Kai Masters” with esteemed actor Tekohe Tuhaka. In 2017, Robert was honored with a KEA World Class New Zealander Award and was named UNDP Advocate for Pacific Health, Food and Sustainability. Robert was awarded the New Zealand Order of Meritin New Zealand’s Honours List for 2022, in recognition for his services to the food industry and Pacific Communities.
Robert is the Executive Director and Founder of “Pacific Island Food Revolution”, a television media-led movement across the South Pacific designed to return the region to traditional cuisine in an effort to curb the Pacific’s NCD crisis. Pacific Island Food Revolution television plays across the Pacific, in New Zealand, Australia, Asia, the UK and the USA and internationally via Parade Media.
