From noughties fame to making bread (with the help of Jeremy Clarkson): How George Lamb, 44, swapped red carpets for white sliced loaves made using Diddly Squat grain after turning his back on the limelight...and has now found love with fashion designer

To the millions watching him at home, George Lamb seemed to have it all.

He was one of the most famous (and fanciable) faces on TV in the noughties with lucrative presenting jobs on T4 and Big Brother's Little Brother as well as hit radio shows on BBC 6 Music and talkSPORT.

But fans were perplexed when he vanished from the limelight ten years ago, so much so that one of the top Google results when you search his name is still: 'What has happened to George Lamb?'

George told MailOnline today that despite 'really enjoying' the trappings of fame - he felt 'empty' working on TV and 'chasing money' so he walked away for a normal job. 

The former presenter and model, 44, has swapped red carpets and boozy nights for agriculture and ancient grains - and has a new unlikely business partner in Jeremy Clarkson. His actor father Larry is also involved.

It is still hard to believe that it was something as humdrum as wheat that would help him find his happiness. A settled girlfriend for the past seven years and a close relationship with his parents also helps. 

George's firm Wildfarmed has become a huge success and for the first time this morning the shelves of Waitrose stores all over the UK are being stacked with his £2.80 white sliced loaves, sourdough and rolls.

The bread is made with wheat from 100-plus farms in the UK that use no chemicals and pesticides, including grain from the former Top Gear host's Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire.

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline today, George Lamb revealed that he and co-owner Andy Cato thought that they were meeting a local farmer to give advice when Clarkson turned up at Wildfarmed's HQ - a 300-acre farm near Swindon.

Cato is a former musician who sold the rights to his Groove Armada songs to buy a farm and is now considered one of the UK’s top regenerative farmers.

Lamb said: 'I got a telephone call from one of our bakers. He said: "Listen, I've been I've been supplying bread to a farm shop and the guy who owns it is a first generation farmer. He's really been struggling, just had his first year couldn't make any money. Can I bring him down to meet you?"

'Next thing you know, Jeremy Clarkson turns up on the farm. And it was amazing. Everybody's got a perception of what he is like. There was a bit of me that was I was just is he serious? Are and he Andy gonna get on? Then it turned out actually that they were from one day and away from each other in Yorkshire and Andy had gone scouting in Jeremy Clarkson's mum's garden when he was a kid. So immediately there was this bit of common ground and I found Jeremy to be really charming and he was really like listening to what we were talking about'.

'We're gonna be featured in series three of Clarkson's Farm, which comes out this Friday', George added.

Lamb is in a bulging group of celebrities who have turned to farming and agriculture, and admits that some stars can get 'out of touch' with the real world so many find farming as a way to become 'grounded' again.

He still lives in east London  - but is passionate about biodiversity and soil health.

And he has no regrets about swapping fame for the bread business. He also admits that in his twenties his only interest in what he ate was out of vanity - code for staying thin - rather than caring about his health. 

But turning 40 'flicked a switch' and focused his mind on eating good food.

Wildfarmed bans all chemicals from its fields and ensures fertility of soil is replenished by growing a variety of different crops in the same field at the same time as wheat, such as peas, clover and barley.

When he was at a low ebb he said: 'My mum said to me I should grow things. When you're young your don't really listen. But something obviously sunk in - she was right'.

But despite his return to TV on Clarkson's Farm - George says he doesn't miss that life at all, admitting that in the past he was 'chasing money' and fame.

'I used to be on television', he says innocently. 'And I got to a point where I was top of the middle, I used to say.

'It was all going quite well - I was living a charmed life. But something was going on in me. It just wasn't it wasn't making my heart sing. Basically, I couldn't really put my finger on it, but I just knew something wasn't quite right.

'I had a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love moment. So I told my agent. I'm gonna come back and do the next series [The Bank Job] I'm gonna go off and just have a bit of an adventure and try and figure out who I am, why I'm here and what I'm doing.

'I was really just searching for what's the purpose of me? Why am I here? What am I meant to be doing? And I did all the stuff that everybody does the kind of trademark route to the east up in the mountains, you know, in the jungle, lots of meditation.

'Lots of introspection but didn't really find what I was looking for’.

George Lamb was one of television's hottest new presenting talents and a regular on Channel 4, T4 and E4 Music.

Before that he was jetting around the world helping promote The Audio Bullies and Lily Allen.

In 2012, he presented the Channel 4 game show The Bank Job - but that would be his last foray into mainstream TV.

Since then he has concentrated on finding himself, his business and a few forays into TV by doing travel shows such as Britain by Bike with his father Larry.

Since his wheat obsession kicked off, they have done Britain by Bread and plan another series.

'Dad is an unofficial Ambassador. Dad and I went out and instead of doing Britain by Bike, we did Britain by Bread. Yeah. So we went round and and went around all the different Marks and Spencers’, he said.

‘And there will be Britain by Bread two. Very soon. And it's a very hush hush of mine- but dad and I will be in some Waitrose stores in the next couple of weeks around the country'.

Today is the first time Brits can buy Wildfarmed’s own brand loaves, which are £2.80 each.

Their flour is also used by Ottolenghi, Franco Manca, ASK Italian and even Premier League champions Manchester City feed their players bread made with it.

George is also looking to build on a 500 strong community of restaurants, bakeries, schools and sports stadiums that already use Wildfarmed’s regen wheat.

Away from the world of wheat, he also has peace and happiness in his private life.

He isn't married and doesn't have children, but does have a fashion designer partner - but coyly declines to name her.

'I haven't had kids yet. I certainly wouldn't rule it out. I started a whole programme in a school called Grow, where we set up a six acre farm next to a normal state school in in North London. And I went and worked in there for three years and literally. I went and worked with kids all day every day. And that was kind of like all of us. I've got like I had hundreds of children - who took the pressure off a little bit. But I certainly I wouldn't rule it out at all.

'I've been with the same lady for the last seven years. And she's great, we've got a really nice relationship. She's got a waste design studio. So she's into all this stuff - she's trying to she come from a fashion background.

'She's like the world doesn't need any more shoes and handbags. So she's like, how can I take all these waste streams and turn them into something positive you know, so she works with these big brands who she used to make stuff for but now making waste collections for them'.

He cites meeting his business partner Andy Cato, one half of the electronic music duo Groove Armada, as a defining moment in his life.

After quitting TV he said: 'I thought - I'm going to spend the summer in Ibiza. I walked into a nightclub and I was introduced to a fellow who was about to DJ and he I'm quite a big guy myself. He's six foot nine or something.

'And he's absolutely exhausted. But not Ibiza exhausted, like existentially exhausted, and I said to him, "are you okay?" And he said, "Not really. I sold my publishing rights to my band. And I bought a farm down in Gascony down in the southwest of France, and I'm trying to figure out how to do how to how to farm it, regeneratively, and the whole thing is a disaster'.

'This was 15 years ago that he'd done this and at that point, he was going to be there and he was DJing to try and basically give me a smash and grab get some money, get back to the farm, prop it all up, get back to you know, and just living this kind of dual life. You know, travelling around with a with a record bag full of agricultural textbooks, basically.

''And he explained to me why he was doing it. He started a vegetable patch. The vegetable patch became polytunnel. The polytunnel became a stall at the local market'.

He now runs a National Trust farm near Swindon - after winning a prestigious tenancy there due to his work as a regenerative farmer.

Cato provides the farming expertise and George uses his star power to promote the brand. They now have around 40 staff.

Justifying the £2.80 a loaf price of his bread, Lamb added: 'Food prices in the supermarket are illusory, they are not the real cost of food. 76% of people don't eat sourdough. So why don't we meet people where they are? Let's make the best possible sliced loaf and let's get it let's get it down to the best possible price.

'We want to bring the price down, but like that's the we've done it at the absolute best price and the best ingredients'.

But he has a gloomy view on food - and while there a many who cannot afford to pay more for good produce - others choose to spend on items that won't make them happy - or healthy.

'If you go into households, quite often you will find, you know, a Samsung or an Apple phone, you might find a big television, you'd find Nikes and Adidas and all the rest of it and actually I think what's happened is our kind of value system has swung a bit and we've we're again', he says.

'I suppose a bit like me when I was looking for that validation. We're more interested in the kind of brands that we're carrying around or wearing or promoting, rather than spending our money on the food that's actually giving us life.

'We've been on a race to the bottom as in as a like culturally, we've been on a race to the bottom with food'.