A firm in Sittingbourne, which specialises in hand-prepared frozen food, has been named the country's best food and drink company to work for, according to the annual Best Companies survey.

COOK Trading was named top in its category - beating off the challenges of the likes of Hotel Chocolat and Naked Wines.

The annual UK Best Companies to Work for List, first established in 2001, has become recognised as the gold standard for workplace engagement by firms big and small.

COOK employs 1,500 people in two big kitchens in Sittingbourne, a logistics centre in Gillingham, and 90 shops nationwide, including outlets in Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.

Rosie Brown, co-CEO, said: “It has been such a challenging year for everyone and to be recognised for being a great place to work during the pandemic makes us all hugely proud.

"Everybody working here has played a part in looking out for each other, for our customers and the communities where we operate."

The COOK Kindness Fund, through which the company has given away more than 200,000 free meals since the start of the crisis, has worked with social housing group Optivo and West Faversham Food Bank to get meals to people in need locally during the pandemic. It also installed freezers with half-priced meals for staff in Medway Maritime, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals.

Brown added: “We’re a growing business that plans to stay in Sittingbourne and we want to be the go-to employer locally.”

As well as being ranked as the top Food & Drink company to work for, COOK came 29th in the overall list of Best Large Companies To Work For. It is the ninth year running it has appeared on the Top 100 list of Best Companies To Work For and it has a 'world-class', three-star employer rating, according to the Best Companies standards.

Among the unusual benefits employees get at the firm are free stays at the COOK Cabin, a holiday home on the coast near Deal; birthdays off; and free life coaching through the company’s Dream Academy.

Brown said: “We want people to bring their very best selves to work. That means we need to care about more than simply what they do when they’re officially working. We don’t have one life at work, and another outside of work. It’s part of a whole and we do what we can to look after the whole person, not just the employee.”

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