Cressida has spent all her grown up working life in this small organisation, and is extremely passionate about everything the Free From Awards stands for and supports. She joined in 2008, just in time for the birth of the Free From Awards, as Awards Coordinator managing all the entries and judging sessions, and in 2019 took over as CEO, when she pledged to do for free from what someone clever did for veganism – make it louder, sexier, classier and more sophisticated. She has guided the organisation through the pandemic and today, under her leadership, free from is as much a space brands want to be seen in as organic, health foods and clean label.

Attention to detail has always been her top skill; keeping the Free From Awards personal for the last 18+ years, responding to emails, phone calls and writing copy herself, being very much a living breathing human at the end of the phone, she has seen her role not only as keeping the awards functioning via administrative and bookkeeping duties, but also as a hub from which anyone who wants to know anything, or connect with anyone, can benefit.

She has put herself out there and tried to be a familiar face of free from, giving talks, presentations and party speeches to emphasise the joy of creating delicious quality free from alongside the very serious reality of severe food hypersensitivities. She encourages all organisations, however tenuously involved, to dip their toes into the crystal waters of free from. She has always supported other awards organisations, actively seeking collaborations, fellow judges, ideas and partnerships with bodies she sees as sister organisations, never seeing other food and drink awards as rivals or competitors, but as healthy, friendly activists contributing to the same cause.