Our cooks
Where would fresh ingredients be without great cooks? We depend on our kitchen team to turn the best quality produce into tasty meals – these are the people that do this great work day in, day out.
Bridport kitchen
Sheryl Hunt, Kitchen Manager
“I really enjoy cooking and am very passionate about and proud to work for Local Food Links.”
Sheryl has been in catering for 32 years, working in kitchens at hospitals, businesses and in schools. Sheryl is a stickler for high standards and plays a vital role in organising staff, ordering produce, and keeping staff working to a tight schedule to produce around 3500 meals a week.
Tracey Lavis, Cook
Tracy has moved up through the kitchen - starting as a General Assistant, she is now is responsible for the production of all our desserts. Tracy is a qualified butcher, and her vast knowledge of meat helps our sourcing immensely. She has been involved in Farmers Markets and Slow Food organisations and is always ready to suggest new possibilities for our menus.
Jenny Crowther, Assistant Cook
Jenny owned her own cafe in Cyprus, and has always loved cooking. She began at Local Food Links as a General Assistant, and today she is an Assistant Cook, responsible for producing the main courses. She has natural flair for good cooking and seasonal ingredients, and she grows all her own vegetables at home.
Lynne Byrne, General Assistant
Lynne has spent her whole working life in educational catering. Lynne has worked for nurseries, primaries, secondaries and colleges - all in her home town of Salford before moving to West Dorset in 2007.
Pru Collins, Assistant Cook
Pru made her first cake aged 7 and has been a professional cook since 1969. She has been a chef in hotels all over Dorset, as well as managing pubs in Dorset and Sussex. She worked in the Army for a period, cooking thousands of meals three times a day, but now finds Local Food Links a great place to cook quality food.
Olivia Franklin, Assistant Cook
Olivia is Bridport born and bred. She went to catering college for two years when she left school, then moved to London and was a cook at Westminster City Hall in Victoria for five years. She then moved back to Dorset and cooked at The George in West Bay before having a son and cooking at Sunny Days for four and a half years. Olivia joined Local Food Links in October 2010.
Robert Sparrow, General Assistant
Robert has been in catering since 1991 and joined Local Food Links in April 2010. Robert is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Choi Kwang Do and a chief instructor in this martial art.
Dan Staple
Dan has been in catering since 1991. He started as a sous-chef in restaurants and then became a baker for Moore's Biscuit Bakery where he stayed for 11 years. He left Moore's when his son was born in 2005 and became a full time dad for 4 years. Dan joined Local Food Links in January 2010.
Blandford kitchen
Jayne Fry, Kitchen Manager
Jayne started with Local food links when the Blandford Hub Kitchen opened. “It was great to be in at the start, it was fun getting the kitchen up and running,” she says.
Jayne has NVQs both in Food Preparation and Management, and has been in school meals since 1998, working her way up through a large company. When she left, she was managing a kitchen that catered for a school with over 1500 pupils.
“I’m very proud of the meals that we produce because of the quality of the ingredients that we use – locally sourced and a lot of organic produce and because of the talented team here in the kitchen. Also I think that the partnership that we have with the schools that we provide meals for is a good way of working. I also enjoy visiting the schools and meeting our customers.”
Cheryl Coles, Assistant Cook
Cheryl started at Local Food Links when it came to Blandford, and her previous experience in meals on wheels catering gives her a good working knowledge of the logistics of delivering hot meals.
Cheryl started as General Assistant. In the last year she has taken her NVQ in Food Preparation and was promoted to her current position.
“I enjoy making the cakes and puddings and working with the lovely ingredients that we use.”
Tracy Dawson, Cook
Tracy has been at Local Food Links in Blandford since it opened. She has worked in school meals catering for almost 10 years. Before Local Food Links she was a manager in a school kitchen, but she prefers to be hands on and really enjoying cooking.
“My role within the kitchen is to cook the main meals, and I have been told that I make a very good cake!”
Caroline Sykes, Assistant Cook
Caroline joined Local Food Links in April 2010. She was trained in Catering at college and has been in school catering for many years, working for a very large private school.
“I enjoy working here as I find it easy to produce nice food, because the ingredients that we use are so good."
Vickie Tatton, General Assistant
Vickie started at Local food Links in October 2010. “Before joining Local Food Links, I spent 6 months inputting data and it made me realise that I really enjoy working in catering - before that I had been working in a pub kitchen,” says Vickie.
“I prepare the vegetables for both main and vegetarian meals. It is lovely to work with fresh vegetables.”