Celebrations were in order for a number of Future 50 members – both past and present – at the 2021 Suffolk and Norfolk Business Awards, which took place on Thursday, November 18 and Thursday, November 25 respectively.

Held in person for the first time since 2019, the awards recognised businesses in both counties, across a number of categories.

Ipswich-based recruitment agency Seven Resourcing picked up the SME of the Year award at the Suffolk Business Awards, while Sudbury-based Caribbean Blinds won the Scale-up Business of the Year award.

Lily Smith, safeguarding and training manager at Seven Resourcing, said: “It’s great to receive this recognition, we feel so proud and privileged to have achieved so much over the years. To get this award shows how far the company has come.”

Bradley Dantzic, company director, and Stuart Dantzic, managing director of Caribbean Blinds, said: “This award is not just for us, it’s for everyone in our team. Following problems with the supply chain, they have all had to work extra hours to deliver for our customers.

“It’s great to be recognised by our peers and see what we have achieved with so many amazing businesses around us.”

Norwich-based health tech company e-Pharmacy claimed the Scale-Up of the Year award at the Norfolk Business Awards.

“I’m ecstatic to win this award, and our team will be too,” said Thuria Wenbar, CEO of e-Pharmacy. “It means so much and validates all the hard work everyone puts in to help build trust with our customers.”

Five former members of the Future 50 programme also went home as winners at the Norfolk Business Awards. This included Cornwall Insight, the Norwich-based energy consultancy, which scooped both the Employer of the Year and Business of the Year awards.

“Our big objective over the last 18 months has been to create an inspiring and secure place for our people to work, where we are clear on our purpose, and the values we live by in pursuing it,” said Gareth Miller, chief executive officer of Cornwall Insight.

“We know we can always improve, and I took away a lot of great ideas from the other finalists. But for our people and their work to be recognised is absolutely incredible."

Commenting on Cornwall Insight’s involvement in the Future 50 scheme, Mr Miller added: “Future 50 opened a door in our mind to wider possibilities. We started around the same time to ask ‘why not?’ in terms of our ambition and goals.

“This helped cement an opportunity-focused mindset that Nigel Cornwall, our founder and MD at the time, had always encouraged. Since becoming CEO in 2017 I have tried to nurture that, but it is so much easier when you are working alongside people who are naturally inclined to believe that we can always be better.”

The other past Future 50 members who won Norfolk Business Awards were Yellow Brick Mortgages, which won the Changing Lives Special Recognition award; Iceni Diagnostics, named Disruptor of the Year; R13 Recruitment, which picked up the Customer Care Award; and Developing Experts, which claimed the Education in Business Award.

Sarah Mintey MBE, founder and CEO of Developing Experts, was also named Business Person of the Year at the awards.