Best of the best revealed at awards dinner
This year’s Devon and Cornwall Business Challenge came to a triumphant finale last evening at a special black tie awards dinner at the Headland Hotel, Newquay.
The Western Morning News backed awards are the region’s search to reveal and celebrate Devon and Cornwall’s brightest business talent sponsored by Bond Pearce, KPMG, The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Twofour.
Over 120 guests gathered together to celebrate with the finalists and winners. The evening included a guest appearance from award winning hotelier and business woman Alex Polizzi, with Chris Slade hosting the evening.
The evening started with the announcement of the Business Excellence Award which was presented to Pall Newquay. Manufacturing high quality medical filters at their purpose-built St Columb Major site, Pall Newquay are part of the Pall Corporation which is the largest and most diverse filtration, separations and purifications company in the world.
Ian Brokenshire, Partner at KPMG’s Plymouth office commented “Pall Newquay really impressed the judges because of their world class products, real thought leadership and strong focus on ‘value added’ in everything they do.”
Pall Newquay beat off stiff competition from Axminster Tool Centre Limited and The Barden Corporation (UK) Limited.
Next to be revealed was the winner of the inaugural Corporate Responsibility Award which was presented to Landmark Information Group. They are the UK’s leading provider of property related geo-spatial and environmental information. Landmark's success has been founded on creating new and innovative information services by combining and consolidating a variety of environmental and geographical datasets.
Richard Cobb, Corporate Finance Partner at Bond Pearce said “The judges were equally impressed by the breadth and depth of Landmark’s policy as with the engagement of such a significant part of the workforce. Added to this they demonstrated a clear commitment to match individual fundraising efforts alongside its support of group organised activities.”
Finalists competing against Pall Newquay for the title were Bailey Partnership and Plymouth Gin.
Frugi were next up on stage to be presented as the winners of the second new award this year – the Communication Award. Frugi is an Organic, Fair Trade and ethical company that designs and manufactures clothing for babies, children and mothers. Currently exporting to 31 countries, Frugi sell their clothing to boutiques (around 200 in the UK) and direct to consumers through their e-commerce site and mail order catalogue.
Commenting Tim Jackman, Director of Legal Affairs at Twofour, said “What really impressed the judges was the way that as a relatively small but growing business Frugi have harnessed the global reach of the internet to communicate with its different communities and to leverage the creativity and zeal of its customers to drive the business forward.”
Competing against Frugi in the final were Cornwall Care and The Hotel & Extreme Academy, Watergate Bay.
The evening culminated with the final new award, the International Award, presented to Centrax Limited. A dynamic privately owned engineering company, based in Newton Abbot, Centrax manufactures efficient power generation equipment. It employs 250 people and exports over 90% of production. Recent strategic development has resulted in a dramatic increase in exports to a number of new countries, including Brazil, Pakistan, India and Russia.
Martin Wright, Relationship Director, with RBS Corporate Banking for Devon and Cornwall commented “The judges were impressed that Centrax is successfully competing with global players in its marketplace and has adapted its strategy to reflect changing conditions by diversifying geographically, into new markets and, latterly, new products. To achieve 100% of new orders from outside the UK for the past few years is a fantastic achievement and makes Centrax a worthy winner of the award. The recent agreement with Rolls Royce to package the much larger 'Trent' based gas turbine is very exciting development and will support further growth in export sales.”
Allen and Heath and Racing Champions International Limited were worthy finalists.
-ends-
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For more information please contact:
Liz Morgan
Bond Pearce LLP
Tel: 0845 415 6625
Email: liz.morgan@bondpearce.com
