Award winner Panesar Foods invests £7m in growth

The ambitious plans were revealed as Panesar Foods was hailed as the Business of the Year at the Black Country Asian Business Association's annual awards event at Wolverhampton Racecourse.

More than 500 people packed into the Ringside Suite to see awards presented to a string of high-achieving businesses and local figures.

And there was a special lifetime achievement award for Lord Paul of Marylebone, founder of the Caparo engineering group and Chancellor of the University of Wolverhampton.

But the big winner on the night wasPanesar Foods, which has grown to employ 160 people at its Ocker Hill operation where it manufactures and distributes a range of sauces under its own brand names and for store chains such as Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons.

The company currently produces around 12,000 tons of its sauces - in jars, sachets and squeezy bottles - every year. But that is set to increase dramatically.

Managing director Bill Panesar said: "We started out at Black Lake in 1991, and then moved to a 40,000 sq ft unit at Ocker Hill. We then took another warehouse and distribution unit of 130,000 sq ft.

"We are investing for the long term, spending around £7 million on installing further high speed automated lines at our plant. At our year end in February our turnover was £24 million, but by the end of next year we are aiming to hit £34m or £36m."

Mr Panesar – who runs the business with his brother, operations director Jas Panesar, and financial director Alan Laity – added: "We are very pleased to have won the BCABA award, and I've been taking the trophy around to show the staff and thank them, but I think it's important that people know that we are a British business, rather than an Asian one. "We were born in Uganda and our parents are from the Punjab, but our kids were born here and are British, I've worked here since 1968 and consider myself British.

"Our business is a British success story, and hopefully we can inspire other British businesses."

Also hoping to inspire fledgling business was the guest speaker at the awards night, Ajaz Ahmed, founder of Freeserve and online advice service Legal365.com

Mr Ahmed asserts that British business would be better served if managers in companies acted more like entrepreneurs. He claimed that entrepreneurs acted more on impulse than rigorous market research or use of focus groups. He encouraged entrepreneurs to ignore the views of consultants and experts and to use their own observation and 'gut instinct'.

Mr Addressing the awards event, Ninder Johal, chairman of BCABA and who is also the president of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce and a Black Country LEP Board member, spoke about the positive growth of the UK economy over the last five quarters and how businesses should look to maximise the opportunities available to them in an ever increasing global marketplace.

He referred to the need for Government to create a conducive environment for businesses to operate in. Mr Johal also asked the government to reduce the regulatory environment and to increase the incentives for businesses to invest in Research and Development by increasing the reliefs available in particular to SME's.

Mr Johal continued on the theme of youth unemployment and asked for the business community to work closely with the local universities and local colleges to address the skills mismatch and to look to encourage others to start businesses to reduce the productivity gap of £7.8 billion.

Mr Johal reemphasized the need for national and local government to continue to work together and for local government to build on the successful work undertaken by the local enterprise partnership. Mr Johal referred to the contribution of asian businesses to the local economy employing thousands of people and reminded that the Black Country had produced its first billionaire in the form of Ranjit Boparan of 2 sisters.

The evening also raised more than £,5000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association

Other award winners included : business start up , Sun Solar; young entrepreneur, Kashif Latif; community excellence, Sporting Khalsa; regeneration, 5 Rivers Group; business person of the year, Salinder Singh (Glass Express); innovation and enterprise, Cornpoppers; international trade, Zeel Solutions; business woman of the year, Paramjit Bains and regional personality of the year, Deana Uppal.