Chef Peter Sidwell - who has a base in Cumbria - has been appointed as a brand ambassador for California Prunes.

Peter, who has presented several TV shows including Britain’s Best Bakery and Lakes on a Plate has been a chef all his working life.

In addition to his extensive culinary skills, he brings a wealth of experience as a consultant to food professionals helping them to develop innovative, on trend and commercially viable new product offerings.

He runs the Simply Good cookery school from a studio at Burns, near Keswick. It is also home to Simply Good Food TV, his recipe video app.

His role with California Prunes will see Peter creating a collection of exciting new recipes featuring prunes and prune juice, in addition to supporting this year’s Prune It campaign.

The campaign aims to educate consumers and the food trade on the important role that prunes can play as an inclusion, by helping to reduce fat and sugar content.

Esther Ritson-Elliott, European marketing director, said: "Peter represents an ideal ambassador for California Prunes, given his heritage as a highly successful culinary professional and as the founder of the pioneering Simply Good Food TV concept.

"By creating powerful content for this important platform, we hope to extend our Prune It messaging to the current 250,000 subscribers of what is being termed the new iPlayer for food programming, who epitomise our key target audience.

"Online video content is a vital strand of our current marketing strategy and the working relationship with Peter will not only enable us to develop fresh, appealing footage, it also provides a direct route to an established communication channel that is growing in popularity."