Tracey Torley

Cracking Good Food is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company working across Greater Manchester to ensure everyone has access to good food. This is done by providing the tools required through our Kitchen Kit Call Out campaign and teaching the skills to know how to cook.

Having worked in voluntary roles since the age of 14, I was delighted to find a volunteer opportunity which united communities with opportunities to learn how to cook good food from scratch.

My background of community and project management experience at The Lowry Theatre and NUS Services, combined with an eagerness to become more involved in the work and fight Cracking Good Food held at its core. I progressed from volunteer to paid team member as a Session Co-ordinator, then Project Manager and now Director. I have undertaken most roles and responsibilities within Cracking Good Food from cleaning pots and pans to leading community cooking sessions and now managing the organisation.

We are heavily reliant on scarce funding but are determined to build a model blending enterprise, funding, grants and activities to help empower communities to create a good food culture.

Since 2010 Cracking Good Food has cooked with over 25,000 people, delivered almost 100,000 meals for people in need during the Covid pandemic, distributed 8.1 tonnes of pre-loved kitchen kit reaching an estimated 19000 people across Greater Manchester and saving 95.5 tonnes of embodied carbon emissions from landfill.

By working together, we can help break the barriers preventing our communities from accessing nutritious sustainable foods and learning how to cook good ingredients from scratch - Everyone Deserves Good Food.