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Bakery rises to top at ceremony
Fosters Bakery has been named Barnsley's best overall business at Barnsley and Rotherham Chamber of Commerce's annual business awards.
The bakery, which was founded by Emily Foster and began life as a transport cafe in a disused blacksmith's shop in the village of Mapplewell, was also highly commended in the Chamber's Diverse Workplace Award.
Operations director Michael Taylor said: "Receiving such a prestigious award makes us feel like Barnsley's favourite baker and fulfils our company vision.
"When you're a company the size of Fosters Bakery, you're never going to survive just making sliced white bread; that's not what we're about. Fosters Bakery is a niche operator massively into innovation.
"Successful businesses need good people and we have got a great multi-skilled workforce, from all walks of life and all over the world."
Now based in Staincross, Fosters includes major airlines, well known retail chains and caterers throughout Britain and Europe as its customers and even exports French bread to France.
Eight years ago, the company started its first subsidiary, Wellfoods, which sells specialist baked products, including gluten free products.
Fosters received its award in front of more than 300 guests at a ceremony in the Brooklands Hotel.
Runners up in the Best Overall Business Award were: Active Voice and Data, Digital Media Centre, Hickton Consultants.
Other awards were presented as follows: Business Growth - Billington Structures; highly commended: Haigh Pettican, Lavender International NDT Consultancy and Stagecoach Yorkshire. Business Start Up - Absolute Fire and Security; highly commended: Integral Network Solutions, Numero, Sushisushi.co.uk and Travel Empire.
Diverse Workplace - Stagecoach Yorkshire; highly commended: Brooklands Hotel and Fosters Bakery. Education Links - Ardsley House Hotel; highly commended: Brooklands Hotel and The Take 2 Centre. Skills - Brooklands Hotel; highly commended: Doyle Consultants and Windowstyle UK. Environment - Kiveton Park and Wales Village Hall; highly commended: DTS Environmental, Pentagon Toyota and Tarmac.
Business Woman of the Year - Elizabeth Walker from House of Beauty; highly commended: Sarah Brabbin from Glo and Cassandra Brown from MED_EL UK. Inward Investment – Flexseal; highly commended: Dantone Precision Engineering and MED-EL UK.
Healthy Workplace - Pilkington AG; highly commended: Barnsley Premier Leisure
Innovation Award - HJC Design; highly commended: Flipt Concept, Haigh Pettican and Merlin Software.
The Barnsley Chronicle received a glass rose bowl to mark the newspaper's 150th anniversary, while the Chamber and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council were presented with a glass award by Brooklands Hotel to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Chamber, which occured in 2007.
n Almost 50 Sheffield companies are waiting to see if they will taste success when the winners of the Sheffield Business Awards are announced on Thursday December 4.
More than 1,000 members of the local business community are expected to attend the event at Ponds Forge, which will be compered by impressionist Jon Culshaw.
Some tickets are still available for the event. For more details, contact the Chamber Events Team, tel: (0114) 201 8930/8899 or visit www.sheffieldbusinessawards.org.uk.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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