Every year Insider magazine celebrates manufacturing in the Midlands with its annual Made in the Midlands awards. This year marks the awards’ tenth anniversary and has seen a record number of entries with 83 submissions from 63 companies.

This is up on last year’s numbers of 69 submissions from 54 companies across the region. Insider judges have now whittled down the entries to 76 candidates in ten categories.

Insider Media Ltd is a regional B2B media company, with five regional B2B magazines read every year by over 200,000 subscribers. The categories for the business awards are:

• Automotive
• Export
• Digital Engineering/ Technology
• Food and Drink
• Sustainable/ Ethical Manufacturer
• Apprentice of the Year
• Manufacturing Innovation
• Manufacturer of the Year (under £25m)
• Manufacturer of the Year (over £25m)

Insider will be holding a gala dinner on Thursday 3 September at the Macdonald Burlington Hotel in Birmingham to announce the winners of the awards. These winners will automatically become finalists for the magazine’s Made in the UK Awards.

A national awards ceremony will then take place on Wednesday 18 November in Liverpool, where the Midlands’ winners will compete with the victors from seven other regions.

The shortlisted applicants showcase the diversity of manufacturing in the Midlands and highlight the scale of innovation across the region. They include businesses such as a musical instrument maker, a cider maker, an autonomous vehicle developer and a business searching for a cure for cancer.

The Black Country and Sandwell companies shortlisted for the Midlands finals include Steel & Alloy in the automotive and apprentice of the year categories, and Exol Lubricants for the export award.

Steel & Alloy specialises in processing steel for the automotive industry and counts the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, Honda, Ford, Volvo, Toyota and BMW among its customers. Based at the Trafalgar Works in West Bromwich, Steel & Alloy employs more than 200 people across its Sandwell sites in Oldbury, Darlaston, Cannock and Smethwick.

Wednesbury-based Exol Lubricants is the largest independent lubricants company in the UK, manufacturing and supplying a range of lubricants and associated products to industry, agriculture, transport, automotive and garage sectors.

For tickets to the awards ceremony and gala dinner please call Georgina Barnes on 0161 907 9708, email georgina.barnes@newsco.com or visit Insider Media’s website.

Congratulations to all the finalists and good luck! We look forward to finding out who the winners are in September.