Food Processing Awards: 2013 winners announced

27 September 2013

Celebrating the best that the UK food industry has to offer, the 2013 Food Processing Awards displayed the best in innovation, automation and sustainable solutions.

Continue reading this article

Register now for free and access every article and to register for the print edition.

Ziaf Hussain, telemarketing executive (left) and Kelly Booth (right) internal sales engineer at Bürkert Fluid Control Systems with Rhian Burge, advertising and direct marketing manager at Ishida Europe Ltd (centre)

The event, which took place at Chesford Grange Hotel, Kenilworth on 25 September, showcased the winners of eight categories which were voted by the readers of Food Processing magazine.

The coveted Company of the Year award was the closest of all the categories, with hundreds of votes cast for both Loma Systems and Bürkert Fluid Control Systems. Bürkert, a family owned company that invests its own money in state-of-the-art technology and provides regular free training, won by a very close margin. Rhian Burge, Advertising and Direct Marketing Manager at Ishida Europe presented the award to Ziaf Hussain and Kelly Booth (pictured).

Hussain said: "We are delighted to win company of the year. It’s a very competitive industry so it’s great to be recognised as the market leader. A big thanks to the whole Bürkert family who, with teamwork and dedication, made this possible. It also would not be right to accept this award without thanking our valued customers, they use our products and voted us as the best and that means a lot to all of us."

The Skills Development Award was voted by a panel of judges, including Mike Dudbridge, principal lecturer at the National Centre for Food Manufacturing, Holbeach and John Craig, managing director at Halo Software. The excellent runners up, Matthew Ward from Olympus Automation and Matthew Payne from Atlas Copco, were beaten by Sam Richards, Britvic Soft Drinks.

Olympus Automation had a particularly good evening, winning the Packaging Solutions category, coming in as runner up for the Technological Development award and being nominated for the Skills Development and Company of the Year categories.

Packpacker Services, too enjoyed success, winning the Technological Development award and narrowly missing first place in the Robotics and Automation category.

Food Processing’s editor, Chris Shaw, said: “We received an all time high number of votes this year, which demonstrates the high regard that all of our nominees have with their customers. With such a high standard of entrants, there was very little to separate them and I would like to offer a big thanks to our readers who took the time to cast their votes.”

The full list of categories, nominees, runners up and winners is below.

ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION
Nominees
Endoline Machinery with Nairn's Oatcakes
Pacepacker Services with Mars Horsecare
Mitsubishi Electric with Quasar Automation and Scorpion Vision
Newtech

Runner up
Pacepacker Services with Mars Horsecare

Winner
Mitsubishi Electric with Quasar Automation and Scorpion Vision

PACKAGING SOLUTIONS
Nominees
Olympus Automation
RPC Halstead
LinkX Systems
RPC Containers
PHS Teacrate

Runner up
LinkX Systems

Winner
Olympus Automation

TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
Nominees
Olympus Automation
Signatrol
Igus
Pacepacker Services
Snowbird Foods
Testo

Runner up
Olympus Automation

Winner
Pacepacker Services

HYGIENE INNOVATIONS
Nominees
UV Technology
Air Products
Signatrol
Industrial Washing Machine
Alchemy

Runner up
UV Technology

Winner
Industrial Washing Machine

ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS
Nominees
Coca-Cola Enterprises
Jigsaw
Savortex
Brunel University

Runner up
Coca-Cola Enterprises

Winner
Jigsaw

ENERGY MANAGEMENT
Nominees
Industrial Washing Machine
Igus
Babcock Wanson
Daikin City
Schneider Electric
Testo

Runner up
Industrial Washing Machine

Winner
Schneider Electric

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
Nominees
Matthew Ward, Olympus Automation
Sam Richards, Britvic Soft Drinks
Matthew Payne, Atlas Copco

Winner
Sam Richards, Britvic Soft Drinks

COMPANY OF THE YEAR
Nominees
Olympus Automation
Testo
Bürkert Fluid Control Systems
Loma Systems
Cambridge Consultants

Runner up
Loma Systems

Winner
Bürkert Fluid Control Systems