The co-founder of the family-run frozen food maker says ethical practices pay dividends on top of financial returns for her business<\/p>\n
Rosie Brown, the boss of Cook, never planned to be a chief executive. First, she trained as a nurse, then tried her hand at politics; then banking. But having struggled at first to find her niche, Brown now leads a ready-meal business ranked as the country\u2019s best place to work in food and drink, and is looking to help others find their way in the world of work.<\/p>\n
Last year, the co-CEO of the ethical frozen food business took over from shoe-mending-chain boss James Timpson as chair of the Employment Advisory Board network, a government-backed programme started by Timpson which works with more than 90 prisons.<\/p>\n
She says she \u201cgrew up thinking it was entirely normal to employ people with barriers to employment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brown\u2019s parents were entrepreneurs who employed ex-addicts in their small cafe and bakery business. So when she joined Cook in 2000, three years after it was set up with one shop in Farnham, Surrey, by her brother Ed Perry (her co-CEO) and his chef friend Dale Penfold, she wanted to find a similar way to \u201cmake an impact\u201d and approached three local prisons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s great talent in prison, and great people. There\u2019s a lot of trauma and difficult backgrounds and difficult lives that have led people into prison in the first place. The rates of reoffending are too high, and employment is the best way to stop [that]. So it\u2019s great for society. It\u2019s great for communities. It\u2019s great for everybody, if we can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
She wants the government to incentivise more businesses to bring in ex-offenders through tax breaks, such as on employers\u2019 national insurance contributions (Nics) or using apprenticeship levy funds to support extra training. \u201cAt the moment, companies that are doing it, like us, are doing it out of our own back pocket,\u201d Brown says.<\/p>\n
Cook has recruited 250 people through a scheme called Raw Talent, which Brown launched a decade ago to help people into work after prison, homelessness or other challenges. Filling jobs in Cook\u2019s shops and kitchens in Sittingbourne, Kent, the scheme\u2019s graduates make up about 5% of Brown\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n
Helping ex-offenders is just part of the family-owned business\u2019s ethical stance, which also includes sourcing all its meat in the UK, providing discounted food for community events, paying the real living wage (which it has done for a decade), offering a profit-share bonus to workers, and even providing access to a holiday home in nearby\u00a0Deal.<\/p>\n
Not only is the company certified as a B Corp, but Brown\u2019s other brother \u2013 James Perry, who is also chair of Cook \u2013 co-founded the UK movement behind the scheme, which requires businesses to meet ethical and environmental \u00adstandards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a very strong independent streak,\u201d says Brown as she nibbles on flapjacks at the company\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
The group does not sell through supermarkets, preferring its own chain of about 100 shops. It also puts its own freezers in more than 1,200 independent outlets, sells online, and is pursuing new ideas such as vending machines for hospital workers. It plans about eight new shops this year and at least 100 more concessions, as well as expanding its online subscription service, which includes meal boxes for new parents \u2013 a key way of winning new fans.<\/p>\n
Brown says a shift to employee ownership one day has not been ruled out, but for now \u201cthe business is primarily owned and run by family, and there\u2019s no plans to change that\u201d. While they do have a few outside shareholders, they are not just focused on \u201cdelivering that number in the bottom right-hand corner of the spreadsheet\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still, there is plenty to be pleased about on the spreadsheet at the moment. Business boomed during the pandemic as Cook benefited from the sudden surge in interest in home-delivered food. While other similar businesses have struggled since, Cook managed to draw in a whole new set of customers.<\/p>\n
Sales rose almost 13% to about \u00a3120m in the year to the end of March 2024, while pre-tax profits jumped to \u00a32.5m \u2013 up almost 80% when excluding a hefty insurance payout linked to a cyber-attack in the previous year. The company\u2019s shareholders, half of whom are the Perry family and the rest outside shareholders, paid themselves a \u00a31.25m dividend.<\/p>\n