An awards ceremony aimed at celebrating new and improved ways of
working in the East Midlands food and drink sector is to be held
for a second year, it has been announced.
The Food and Drink innovation Network (iNet) Innovation Awards
were successfully launched last year to recognise and reward the
achievements of some of the most innovative firms, organisations
and individuals in the region's food and drink industry.
Now the Food and Drink iNet has revealed that it is staging the
awards again this year, and the hunt is now beginning for worthy
winners across Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire,
Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Rutland.
"Last year's entries reflected the exciting and innovative work
that is going on in the food and drink sector in the East Midlands
to create new products and new ways of working," said Richard
Adlington, Food and Drink iNet interim project director.
"The Food and Drink iNet is helping to encourage such
innovation, and we want to build on the success of last year's
inaugural awards by staging a similar event in 2009."
Last year's Food and Drink iNet Innovation Champion was
Belper-based Rico Mexican Kitchen, founded by Marcela Flores
Newburn. Marcela also won the Food and Drink innovation Network
Campden BRI Award for Collaboration for the way in which she
collaborated with Nottingham Trent University to resolve early
shelf-life issues she had with the development of her authentic
Mexican products.
Marcela said: "Winning the Food and Drink iNet Innovation
Champion 2008 award was a great honour and it gave me the
confidence that what we were doing in launching and developing our
business is along the right direction. It also opened doors for us
to meet people who could support us further, including winning a
support package from the Food and Drink Forum, and from Campden
BRI.
"There was also the benefit of having the awards PR, who did a
press release on us as winners and gave us help with media contacts
and coverage. The media has since been really important to raising
the profile of our products and has helped us tell our story - it's
so much easier to talk to them, because they know us as the Food
and Drink iNet Innovation Champion for 2008."
Another award winner was ABB Drives, of Derby, who won the Food
and Drink innovation Network Clegg Food Projects Award for New
Process & Environmental Awareness by applying existing
technology to the food industry by developing 'bolt on' variable
speed drive motors for refrigerators.
Ron Macdonald, ABB's food and beverage market manager, said:
"Winning the iNet award has certainly helped raise the
profile of ABB's work in developing variable speed drives solutions
for industrial refrigeration systems, not only in the
Midlands region but nationally. We received much publicity in many
of the leading trade and technical magazines, and while still early
days, we are confident that awards of this nature highlight the
benefits of our solution which includes reduced energy use, costs
and CO2 emissions."
The Food and Drink iNet Innovation Awards will have a number of
categories open to firms, organisations and individuals working
across the food and drink sector. The Innovation Awards will
culminate in a glittering ceremony in November, where the winners
will be crowned in front of their industry peers.
David Wallace, Innovation Director of East Midlands Development
Agency (emda) which funds the Food and Drink iNet, said: "The Food
and Drink Innovation Awards create a new set of role models for the
sector, which is particularly important at this time.
"In a recession, it is crucial that businesses look at new ways
of doing things, to enable them to develop and improve new products
or processes, enter new markets and gain a competitive
advantage."
The Food and Drink iNet aims to foster innovation in the
region's food and drink sector by encouraging businesses to turn
new ideas into new business through the development of new
technologies and products. It also hopes to stimulate new
processes, services and ways of working in the industry to help
boost the sector in 2009 and beyond.
Funded by East Midlands Development Agency (emda), the Food and
Drink iNet is managed by a consortium, led by the Food & Drink
Forum and including the Food Processing Faraday Partnership,
Nottingham Trent University, The University of Lincoln, and The
University of Nottingham.
To register interest in receiving details of the award
categories, contact Jo Stevenson on 0115 9758810 or
enquiries@foodanddrinkforum.co.uk