Business Brief

Two Wiltshire winners in South West small business awards

By Tom Padfield - 9 March 2020

Business

• The FSB South West winners 2020

Two successful small businesses from Wiltshire were chosen as among the ‘best in the West’ at the FSB South West small business awards final this week - an event where the county had four other nominations on the shortlist.

• Wellbeing success story...Henrietta Boucher from Excalibur Communications of Swindon receives the company’s FSB Award from sponsor Darryl Goddard of Wales and West Utilities
• Keeping it in the family – Surinder Hothi-Bellamy accepts the FSB award as Family Business of the Year from FSB South West Policy Lead Iain Wallis from Devizes

The South West area finals of the FSB ‘Celebrating Small Business Awards 2020’ took place at Somerset County Cricket Ground on Wednesday and winners in a range of categories included everything from the producer of sleeping bags for babies to a biscuit manufacturer and a cats’ cafe.

SME from as far apart as the Forest of Dean and the Isles of Scilly were on the shortlist with two Wiltshire-based small businesses emerging victorious and claiming category winner prizes.

Indian cookery school Pure Punjabi Ltd from Salisbury, won the prized Family Business of the Year Award trophy while Swindon’s Excalibur Communications won the all-new Wellbeing Award for their enthusiastic commitment to support their staff.

Excalibur’s Henrietta Boucher said she was extremely grateful to the FSB for their trophy as it recognised the company was totally committed to improving wellbeing for their employees.

“I think it is great to win this award,” she said. “So much is being said about wellness in the workplace at the moment and the managers and staff at Excalibur have worked really hard to achieve an ambition of make it an even better place to work.”

Surinder Hothi-Bellamy, from Pure Punjabi said she was also thrilled to be taking the award back to her three children in the family business - Safia Hothi-Bellamy and Samir and Aaron Bellamy

“We are delighted to win this award as the whole reason we created this business was for the family. My real purpose in starting the company was so that if my three children ever needed to take time out of work to look after their children they would be able to do so and always have a good business to go back to.”

The four other Wiltshire-based firms shortlisted for one of the 12 trophies on offer were Blue Bee Solutions (Salisbury), Hartifull (Sparcells), Key Property Associates Ltd (Chippenham) and Saffron Indian Takeaway (Salisbury).

Lee Nathan, whose business has offices in Plymouth and Bristol and is the FSB Regional Chairman for the South West, said the diversity and strength of the region’s small business community was perfectly illustrated at the awards

“It was a fantastic day which showed the amazing range of small businesses we have in the South West. More people than ever entered our awards this time and we would urge all the small businesses in the South West to follow their example and take part next year to make it an even bigger and better celebration of the small business community.”

The full list for the South West area ‘FSB Celebrating Small Business Award’ winners for 2020 is:

Business & Product Innovation Award

The Great British Biscotti Co (Christchurch, Dorset)

Family Business of the Year

Pure Punjabi Ltd (Salisbury, Wiltshire)

International Business of the Year

Slumbersac Trading Company Ltd (Wimborne, Dorset)

Environmental Award

Total Renewable Solutions SW Ltd (Ilminster, Somerset)

Start-up Business of the Year

Ocean Adventures (Cheddar, Somerset)

Digital/e-Commerce Business of the Year