Finalists named for this year’s National Business Awards sponsored by Lloyds Bank

Diversity is the name of the game for this year's awards, as the business world celebrates those who have flourished during a challenging last 12 months.

Finalists named for this year’s National Business Awards sponsored by Lloyds Bank

Diversity is the name of the game for this year’s awards, as the business world celebrates those who have flourished during a challenging last 12 months.

Organisers of the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards have just announced this year’s finalists ahead of November’s online ceremony. The full list of businesses and individuals, hoping to win one of the many prestigious awards on offer, were unveiled on Thursday morning by the event’s organising committee.

Most UK regions will be represented on finals night with the event’s director Sarah Austin paying tribute to all British businesses for their ‘resilience, agility and innovation’ during a difficult past 12 months. Faced with untold economic and logistical challenges, as a result of the financial and psychological damage caused by Coronavirus, Sarah said: It would be an understatement to say that this year has been challenging for UK businesses. 

No one could have predicted Covid-19, or the economic and personal impact it has had on all of us. What we’ve all been through over the last five months means it’s even more important we celebrate the success of our businesses. We must congratulate and shine a light on those organisations and entrepreneurs who have shown true innovation, creativity, resilience and agility. They have not just survived this pandemic, and all of the challenges it has thrown at them, but they have positively thrived. 

We received a staggering number of entries this year, so our finalists really are the creme de la creme of UK business. And those short-listed for the awards are most certainly diverse on many different levels, regarding size, sector and region. The list includes public, private and third-sector businesses, which range from huge multi-national and well-established organisations, to the newer and smaller challenger brands, fledgling start-ups, entrepreneurs and disruptors from academia.

Event’s chief Sarah Austin points out: The diversity of entrants closely mirrors recent UK consumer behaviour, with a number of industries unsurprisingly well represented. Over the last five months, with much of the nation forced to stay at home under lockdown, spending has certainly increased on food, household goods and technology. Pet adoptions have also rocketed, and the logistics industry has kept the country running and fed. Among the sectors well represented this year are companies involved in the following industries: Food; pets; logistics; technology and gaming; home and garden.

As for geographical regions, there are four particular clusters: Scotland has seven nominations, 12 are from Yorkshire, nine in the midlands, while London’s 52 cover 46 different businesses. With regards to individual businesses, three companies share top spot with three nominations apiece. They are: Mindful Chef (London), S-Cube (London) and Invopack (Banbury).

Mindful Chef, whose backers include former Wimbledon champion Sir Andy Murray and Olympic track cyclist Victoria Pendleton, have grown remarkably from a few hand delivered meal kits five years ago, to employing over 70 people across two UK locations. They now deliver approximately 30,000 boxes per week and, for every meal they sell, the company donates one school meal to a child living in poverty. So far, this figure has passed two million donations.

S-Cube, meanwhile, is a high growth technology venture which started life as part of a world-leading research group at Imperial College London. It is a cloud-based service company which takes images of the earth’s subsurface, primarily for the benefit of the energy industry. It uses the most automated and efficient algorithm ever developed.

Family-owned Invopak is a leading supplier of metal and plastic rigid containers in the UK and Ireland. It provides a comprehensive range of packaging to over 5,000 B2B and B2C customers.

And Paul Gordon, of the Lloyds Banking Group, said he was delighted the company were sponsoring this popular awards’ ceremony. He explained: The National Business Awards provides us with a great opportunity to celebrate success and to highlight the businesses which have performed well, so they receive the external recognition they fully deserve. At Lloyds Bank, UK businesses are core to our purpose, so it’s wonderful to be associated with such talent and to be able to recognise their success on a national scale.

This year’s winners will be unveiled on Tuesday, November 10th, with the online ceremony presenting a new award. The Pivot for Purpose Trophy will celebrate the fantastic achievements of UK organisations which have supported communities and key workers during lockdown.

This category will reward businesses that have gone above and beyond their usual practice to deliver essential services, assistance and support to vulnerable people, local communities and key workers.

Broadcaster Declan Curry, who is a member of the ceremony’s advisory board panel, is pleased that this new award has been initiated in 2020. He said: “Many companies acted responsibly and generously to protect their colleagues, customers and their wider communities during the Coronavirus crisis. This award is a thank-you to all those businesses that did the right thing. Good behaviour creates great businesses, and this should be celebrated, highlighted and rewarded.” 

Now that the full list of finalists has been unveiled, the next step will be for judges to decide on the category winners. Judging will take place from September 7th-18th.

The Pivot for Purpose award is free to enter, and entries remain open until September 18th: https://www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk/en/categories/pivot-for-purpose.html

Please visit www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk for more information.


FULL LIST OF NOMINATIONS

LDC Growth Through Innovation Award

  • DPD UK (Smethwick)
  • LEEC Ltd (Nottingham)
  • Vision Modular Systems Ltd (Bedford)
  • Touchlight (London)
  • The bigword Group (Leeds)
  • CPOMS Systems Ltd (Skipton)
  • BDR Voice & Data Solutions (Stratford on Avon)
  • Global Procurement (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
  • WaveOptics (Oxford)
  • S-Cube (London)

 

Virgin Atlantic Customer Experience & Loyalty Award

  • JogPost (London)
  • Vizolution (London)
  • UK Fast (Manchester)
  • Invopak (Banbury/Oxford)
  • ProDog Raw (Hull)
  • Mindful Chef (London)
  • Lintbells (Hitchin)
  • Blue Badger Financial Ltd (Hatfield)
  • Reflex Vehicle Hire (Loughborough)
  • Interlink (London)

 

Lloyds Bank Mid-Market Business of the Year Award

  • Content Guru (Bracknell)
  • Global Procurement Group (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
  • La Fosse Associates (London)
  • Invenio Business Solutions (Reading)
  • Rockwool Ltd (Bridgend)
  • Burlington Care (Bridlington)
  • Company Shop Group (Corby)
  • Designer Contracts (East Midlands)
  • Riverford Organic Farmers (Buckfastleigh) 
  • Invopak (Banbury)

 

The Give a Grad a Go Employer of the Year Award

  • Bibby Distribution (Liverpool)
  • Shopper Media Group (London)
  • Invopak (Banbury)
  • deVol Kitchens (Leicester)
  • Croud (London)
  • La Fosse Associates (London)
  • DCSL Software (London)
  • AAA Cleaning (London)
  • Opus Telecom (London)
  • Hermes (Leeds)

 

Lloyds Bank Exporter of the Year Award

  • Premier Ship Models (Potters Bar)
  • Invenio Business Solutions (Reading)
  • SD Ramsden (Grimsby)
  • SMA Worldwide (Kings Langley)
  • Aire Global (Leeds)
  • TechNiche Ltd (Fareham)
  • RS Components (Corby)
  • n-Dreams (Farnborough)
  • Bladnoch Distillery (Bladnoch, Dumfries and Galloway)
  • TVSquared (Edinburgh)

 

Business Enabler of the Year Award

  • Vizolution (London)
  • Fulfilmentcrowd Ltd (Chorley)
  • AccountScore Ltd (London)
  • Recursyv Ltd (Addlestone)
  • James & James Fulfilment (Northampton)
  • Impex Parts Group (Leeds)
  • Hermes (Leeds)
  • DCSL Software Ltd (London)
  • Unily (Lower Eashing)

 

Lloyds Bank Small to Medium Sized Business of the Year Award

  • Utility Bidder (Corby)
  • Mindful Chef (London)
  • Totalmobile (Belfast)
  • Frenchic Paint (West Byfleet)
  • LAC Conveyor Systems (Nottingham)
  • Lintbells (Hitchin)
  • Sullivan & Stanley (London)
  • Faith in Nature (Manchester)
  • Adarma (Edinburgh)
  • Trint (London)

 

The Artificial Intelligence Award

  • Tractable (London)
  • Luminance (London)
  • Streetbees (London)
  • Olvin Ltd (London
  • Servicerobots.com (Halesowen)
  • Trint (London)
  • Phrasee (London)
  • S-Cube (London)
  • Senseye (Southampton)
  • Deepzen (London)

 

Lloyds Bank New Business of the Year Award

  • Hyper Group (Leeds)
  • Little Freddie (London)
  • Goto Energy (Sandwich)
  • Willsow Ltd (Leicester)
  • Millbrook Dairy Company (Bideford)
  • proSapient (London)
  • Zephr (London)
  • Privalgo (London)
  • Powersheds (Bradford)
  • Berkeley Capital Group Ltd (London)

 

The Excellence Award

  • Clinical Informatics Research (Southampton University)
  • Diligencia (Oxford)
  • SEC Group (Milton Keynes)
  • JCURV (London)
  • S-Cube (London)
  • AccountScore (London)
  • Recursyv Ltd (Addlestone)
  • Interlink (www.interlinklg.com) (London)
  • Zephr (London)  
  • Hyper Group (Leeds)

 

Castle Corporate Finance Scale-Up Business of the Year Award

  • SourceBreaker (London)
  • Bella & Duke (Blairgowrie)
  • Creams Cafe (London)
  • Sullivan Stanley (London)
  • Total Mobile (Belfast)
  • Corndel (London)
  • Utility Bidder (Corby)
  • Lintbells (Hitchin)
  • Adarma (Edinburgh)

Inflexion Entrepreneur of the Year Award

  • Jim Darragh (CEO of Totalmobile, Belfast)
  • Dean Forbes (CEO/Founder of Access Group, London)
  • Sean Taylor (Global CEO of Redwood Technologies, Bracknell) 
  • Justin Whitston (CEO/Founder of Fleetondemand, Saltaire)
  • Parry Malm (CEO of Phrasee, London)
  • Brie Read (CEO/Founder of Snag Group, Livingstone)
  • Ian Shott (Executive Chair of Arcinova, Alnwick)
  • Tim Clover (CEO of Rayner Intraocular Lenses, Worthing)
  • Paul Cox (CEO of Reconomy Group, Telford)
  • Kevin Kane (CEO of PHASTAR, London)
  • Hugh Griffiths (CEO of Inzpire, Lincoln)

 

Lloyds Bank Positive Social Impact Award

  • Purple (Chelmsford)
  • Sanctuary Personne (Ipswich)
  • Pareto Facilities Management (Chipping Norton)
  • Mindful Chef (London)
  • Touchlight (London)
  • Liniar (HL Plastics) (Denby)
  • InvestIN Education (London)
  • Octavia House Schools (London)
  • Fortel Group (Birmingham)
  • Animondial (Hove)

 

New Entrepreneur of the Year Award 

  • Baljinder Gill (Director of Balfort Legal, London)
  • Victoria Forrest (Director of VIKA Books, Bristol)  
  • Jade Holly Smith (Director of The Saddle Bank, Cambridge)
  • Deirdre Mc Gettrick (CEO of Kuldea, London)
  • Emma Powell (Founder of Epiony, Southport) 
  • Archie Wilkinson (CEO of Lifesaver, London)
  • Leigh Fell (CEO of Caritas Neuro Solutions, Edinburgh)
  • Haroon Danie (CEO of Skin HQ, Manchester)
  • Thomas Willday (Founder of Willslow Ltd, Leicester) 
  • Philip Bruner (CEO of Enian, London)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Swales
Andy Swales
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