Innovation To The Fore At Cork County Council’s Enterprise Awards In South Cork

The ‘Best in Cork’ Awards for South Cork Revealed

A company that harnesses the healing power of bees, a new business that helps people to improve their English for work and an offshore survey company have been named as the best businesses in South Cork. Cork County Council hosted the second of three Best in Cork divisional awards at a special event in Midleton Park Hotel. The area stretches from Macroom to Youghal taking in the large towns of Carrigaline, Cobh and Midleton.

Best Small Business went to the Little Island based Hanna’s Bees, it produces a unique range of eco-friendly and sustainable handmade products which are stocked in Ireland's leading artisan food stores and luxury retailers, including Brown Thomas, Arnotts and Kilkenny Design.

Crosshaven based Green Rebel was named Best Medium Business. It was founded in 2020 and employs 65 people full time. Green Rebel operates a fleet of vessels and aircraft to map vast areas of the ocean with minimal ecological impacts.

Everywhere English picked up the Best Start-up award. The Youghal-based company is an online learning solution that helps non-native English-speaking teams in businesses improve their level of industry-specific English.

The three winners and three runners up will now go on to represent South Cork at the overall Best in Cork awards set to take place at Cork County Hall in January.

Midleton based sourdough bakery The Grumpy Bakers was the runner up in the Best Small Business category; Ballymaloe House Hotel, the East Cork country house set up by Myrtle Allen in 1964 was the Best Medium Business runner up; with online maths school Breakthrough Maths the runner up Best Start-up.

The Deputy Mayor of the County of Cork, Cllr. John Healy, said,

South Cork is a large division that includes the major towns of Carrigaline, Midleton and Youghal as well as Cobh and Macroom. There was a huge volume of entries, the competition was fierce and the independent panel of judges remarked upon the high quality of each entry. The innovation and determination shown by each business is inspiring. It is fitting that today’s ceremony is being held in Midleton as the entire community has shown incredible resilience following the recent flooding. I would like to congratulate the six businesses who will represent South Cork in the overall awards in January and wish them the very best of luck.

Chief Executive of Cork County Council, Valerie O’Sullivan added,

Once again sustainability is to the fore in every category. The entrants and winners are making use of the highest quality local ingredients, are providing innovative services that help others to reduce their carbon footprint or are working directly in the green energy sector. They are all providing vitally important local jobs and are helping to make County Cork an incredible place to live, work and visit. The last few months have been particularly difficult for businesses and communities here in Midleton and surrounding areas following the worst flooding in decades. I would ask everyone to make a special effort to visit Midleton this Christmas.

The third and final Divisional awards for West Cork take place in Rosscarbery on Wednesday, December 13th.