“Charlotte has created form and structure around what was already in place enabling us to travel faster and more efficiently with the agenda we had. This has been made possible due to her amazing ability to engage people at every level of the business with our purpose.”

Edward Perry, CEO and Founder, COOK

COOK

At COOK, our founding statement in 1997 was to ‘cook using the same ingredients and techniques that you use at home’ and nothing has changed. We make remarkable food for your freezer, prepared by hand at our Kitchen in Kent, competing against the supermarkets by offering a quality of product and customer service that they cannot match. Since the start in 1997, we haven’t stopped growing and now have more than 70 shops, an online business and a wholesale business – as well as running our own logistics operation. It’s been a wonderful, if rather stressful, adventure. We have clung proudly to our independence throughout enabling us to retain our firm belief that good business should be about more than merely maximising financial return for shareholders and should be a force for good in society. We see a need to redefine what success means in business, away from the narrow definition focused solely on profit. Making money still matters, but so does a whole load of other stuff. Figuring this out, while we continue to grow, is likely to define the next chapter of COOK’s story.