Frost and Sullivan presented 12 awards at its 2006 Excellence in Chemicals awards banquet held in London this week
The well-attended banquet honoured companies for outstanding performance across the chemicals, food ingredients and materials sectors with awardees excelling in sectors as diverse as food fibres, flavourings and vitamins to work wear, silicones and flame retardants.
Awards were conferred for market leadership, business and brand development, technology and product innovation, exceptional growth and competitive strategies, product excellence as well as focused customer service.
Honourees from the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Japan and the United States celebrated their companies' achievements and, most importantly, the performance of their teams.
Among the evening's award recipients were Cosucra Groupe Warcoing, Raisio Benecol .
and Natraceutical for their demonstrated leadership in competitive strategy, brand development and growth strategy, respectively.
Supresta picked up the award for market leadership of the year for its outstanding performance in the European flame retardant market.
Belmay, Mascot International, Schoeller Textil, Switzerland, Ticona, and Merck Eprova received awards for product-related excellence.
Dow Corning was acknowledged for its superior customer services while Exatec and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo bio-chemicals business unit were recognised for their technological successes.
Delivering the keynote speech on 'Review of 2006: A year in the chemical industry', Brian Balmer, Frost and Sullivan's programme manager of performance materials research, examined the hottest trends, innovations, challenges and opportunities that defined the chemicals industry over the course of this year.
"The challenges facing the major chemical industry product groups - specialty chemicals, materials and, foods - are essentially the same," said Balmer.
"These involve concerns related to identifying the most promising new country markets in which to grow, tackling the dilemma of commoditisation versus specialisation, effectively harnessing both internal and external sources of innovation, as well as responding to emerging or changing legislation such as Reach, Weee, the biofuel directives, food labelling and PPE directives".
Balmer also touched upon some of the key trends that have come to characterise the European chemicals industry.
"Due to cost considerations and an increasingly dispersed customer base, outsourced production is rising.
"Understanding the basic dynamics of this trend, hiring and retaining the right staff and ensuring IP protection is imperative if companies are to leverage the benefits of outsourcing their production activities".
The awards banquet was attended by almost 60 participants from Europe's leading chemicals, food and beverage ingredients companies.
The following is a complete list of award recipients:.
2006 competitive strategy leadership award: Cosucra Groupe Warcoing.
2006 market leadership award: Supresta.
2006 product line strategy leadership award: Belmay .
2006 brand development strategy leadership: Raisio Benecol .
2006 technology innovation award: Exatec.
2006 product quality leadership award: Mascot International.
2006 technology innovation award: Kyowa Hakko Kogyo bio-chemicals business unit.
2006 product innovation of the year award: Schoeller Textil, Switzerland.
2006 product innovation award: Ticona .
2006 growth strategy leadership award: Natraceutical.
2006 product differentiation innovation award: Merck Eprova.
2006 customer service innovation of the year award: Dow Corning.
