News

The premier event celebrating the best and brightest business achievements in the southern region is set to take place next month, after what has been a challenging couple of years for business.

The Grand Business South Awards will be held on Friday 18 November at the Dunedin Town Hall, with tickets for the event now on sale. This year, there are 38 businesses represented across 16 categories.

The Awards are held biennially to celebrate business excellence and recognise innovation, creativity and success in the southern business sector. This year’s event will be the thirteenth ceremony held in the past 24 years.

“The Awards provide a wonderful opportunity to consider and acknowledge the achievements of southern organisations and teams, which will be especially gratifying after the challenges of the past two years,” says Business South Chief Executive, Mike Collins.

For small businesses, large organisations and everything in between, the Awards are a chance to showcase their work to their peers and the public.

“As well as offering recognition of excellence, the Awards provide the opportunity to benchmark against others and gain advice from expert judges to inform continued growth and improvement,” says Mr Collins. “The application process itself is a really healthy and useful exercise for businesses, guiding them to reflect on where they’ve come from, where they’re at and where they’re heading.”

He says Business South is delighted to partner with The Grand as naming sponsor, a business known for exceeding expectations when hosting high end events.

The finalists for The Grand Business South Awards 2022 are:

Excellence in Service: Crew Technology Recruitment; Fable Dunedin; Select Recruitment

Excellence in Retail: Design Federation; Gilbert’s Fine Food; Mitre 10 MEGA Wanaka

Excellence in Tourism and Hospitality: Highlands – Experience the Exceptional; iFLY Indoor Skydiving Queenstown; Tūhura Otago Museum

Excellence in Not for Profit: Kiwi Harvest; Mirror Services Whakaata Tohu Tohu; Southern Youth Development (formerly the Malcam Charitable Trust)

Excellence in Primary Industry: Mataura Valley Milk; Forest Lodge Orchard and New Zealand Zero; Topflite Limited

Excellence in Manufacturing: Farra Engineering; Site Weld NZ Ltd; United Machinists

Excellence in Technology: GetHomeSafe; GummyBear in collaboration with Zest4Travel; Oritain Global Limited

Excellence in Export: Farra Engineering; Oritain Global Limited; TUAPEKA

Emerging Business: CRUNCHY Ltd; Fable Dunedin; Pro Civil Construction Limited

Māori Business: INNOV8HQ; Pōtiki Poi; Youth Employment Success

Brand Strategy and Planning: Lake Wanaka Tourism; Richard Joseph & Associates; Whistle & Pop

Innovation: GetHomeSafe; GummyBear in collaboration with Zest4Travel; Highlands – Experience the Exceptional

Business Sustainability and Resilience: Mataura Valley Milk; Preens Apparelmaster & Linenmaster; The Strictly Coffee Company

Business Integrity: Firebrand; Propower; Tolcarne Boarding Residence

Workplace Injury Prevention: Ceres Environmental NZ LLC; Downer NZ; Select Recruitment

Excellence in Leadership: Heidi Renata, Chief Energy Officer, INNOV8HQ; Josie Spillane, CEO, Highlands – Experience the Exceptional; Richard Roberts, Former CEO, Dunedin International Airport Limited

The Grand Business South Awards 2022 thanks its generous sponsors: Business South, The Grand, Otago Daily Times, Otago Community Trust, Enterprise Dunedin, University of Otago Business School, Otago Polytechnic, Findex, Centres of Asia-Pacific Excellence, Grow Dunedin Partnership, Craigs Investment Partners, Anderson Lloyd, New Zealand Media and Entertainment, Forsyth Barr, Invest Hong Kong, Clutha Development, Strawberry Sound, DKCM, and Allied Productions.