Crowning glory

Outstanding industrial firms are among the illustrious list of organisation to have won a 2007 Queen's Award for Enterprise

The Queen's Awards for Enterprise for 2007 have been announced - and a number of manufacturing organisations, large and small, have been bathed in glory.

The awards are given for three categories -- international trade, innovation and sus­tainable development - and this year's winners include diverse industrial businesses such as the world's largest privately-owned yacht builder and a manufacturer of novel immuno-diagnostic kits for use in diagnosing and monitoring multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer).

A total of 119 business awards were made this year: 71 for international trade, 40 for innovation and 8 for sustain­able development.

Winners include some well known manufacturing organi­sations such as Cummins Engines, JCB and Sunseeker Yachts. Sunseeker of Poole, Dorset, is winning the award for the fifth time for increasing its exports by over £50 million in three years. Virtually all its production is exported and it sells to over 40 countries world­wide. In the last three years, Sunseeker's exports have totalled more than £510million and the company has created 291 more jobs.

Also on the list for accolades were Avon Metals of Glouces­ter, dairy product manufacturer Coombe Castle, Bridgnorth­-based Grainger & Worrall, which makes specialist castings for automotive and defence customers, and Birmingham-­based The Binding Site, which has developed the new blood test for bone marrow cancer.

The awards were originally known as the Queen's Award to Industry when the programme began in 1966, and have been run under a number of guises since then. Since a review in 1999, they became known as the Queen's Awards for Enter­prise with the three categories of international trade, innova­tion and sustainable develop­ment.

BACK TO LIST