R enowned British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is incorporating some Canadian content into his new CTV Life Channel series Jamie Oliver: Together.

Premiering Nov. 4, the premise of Together (6 x 60 minutes) from Jamie Oliver Productions finds the 46-year-old Emmy-winning restaurateur and cookbook author reuniting friends and family around the dinner table. Exclusively for the Canadian audience, an extra episode – Jamie Oliver: Together With Canada – will wrap the season on Dec. 9.

For the finale, Oliver delivers his own twist on steak frites by incorporating Canadian ingredients such as poutine and Niagara garlic. Oliver also delivers the beverage Canadian Caesar with a hit of clam juice. The program is sponsored by Canadian cheese giant Saputo to promote Cathedral City, the U.K.’s top cheddar cheese.

Distributed  internationally by Fremantle, the series will also be available to stream on CTV.ca and the CTV app.

Justin Stockman, VP, content development and programming, Bell Media, says this rare opportunity to have Oliver cook up something exclusively for Canadian audiences was a match made in heaven.

“We have a pretty strong relationship with Jamie Oliver since launching originally Gusto TV, which ran on the CTV Live Channel – and Jamie was actually at our launch event for Gusto when we took it on,” Stockman tells Playback Daily. “We’ve also had a pretty strong relationship with Fremantle, his distributor and producer.  We talked about what sort of custom ideas we could do and an opportunity came up with his new series Jamie Oliver: Together,  which is based on his latest cookbook. Then we were able to work it out so we would do a special based on that series where he’s speaking directly to his Canadian fans.”

Stockman says once CTV formulated the idea, their brand partnership division approached different sponsors, before Montreal-based Saputo and Cathedral City signed on.

“In the episode, Jamie refers to great Canadian cheeses and then we reference the brand Cathedral City. It’s pretty seamless but it was based on us bringing the opportunity to the marketplace based on the fact that we were going to do this episode.”

Jamie Oliver: Together With Canada is a win for both viewers and the sponsor, says Stockman.

“The brand partnership opps from the content team is a great way for us to monetize the content we’re delivering to our viewers,” Stockman acknowledges. “But honestly, for CTV Life (Channel) viewers we thought it’d be really exciting that one of the biggest stars on the channel is literally speaking to Canadians in the episode. To integrate a brand into that is a bonus, I guess. Anything involving brand partnerships isn’t jarring and it feels natural – so it’s a win for our viewers and because it’s a win for our viewers, I think it’ll be a win for the client.”

Stockman doesn’t rule out creating similar customized programming in the future.

“This is great because Fremantle are a really collaborative distributor and have direct relationships with Jamie, so they were able to make this happen,” he says. “Obviously, we have a lot of great original Canadian content, but our viewers also like watching original content from the U.K. or the U.S. So, anytime we can have one of those personalities speak directly to our viewers, it’s great and just makes the connection even better. You’re getting the series through our Canadian services. So we would love to do this again, whether with Jamie or anyone else.”

The CTV Life Channel offers a number of programs hosted by foodies such as Oliver and Ireland’s Donal Skehan, including the original Canadian series Mary Makes It Easy, DNA Dinners, Double Your Dish and One Big Recipe.