Why enter the awards

Ashburton District Council wants to celebrate excellence, innovation and business success within our region.

Business Awards allows companies to have:

• A cost-effective way to gain an outside perspective on their strengths and opportunities for improvement
• A way to energise and motivate their team
• Ability to seek media recognition and profile for their business
• Benchmark against competitors Mid Canterbury is a great place to do business.

The back bone of farming, the home of mass irrigation, continued growth of manufacturing and tourism. We have everything here – from a large primary agricultural sector in arable, cropping and dairy, manufacturing, unparalleled scenery and premier tourist destinations with Mount Hutt at the centre, and the list goes on.

Sometimes we forget to celebrate this; we have a tendency to avoid holding our heads above the parapet in fear of the kiwi affliction – tall poppy syndrome. The Ashburton District Council Business Awards is about having the courage to turn the tall poppy syndrome on its head and celebrate the incredible number of innovative, passionate, creative and downright gusty people and businesses, whom call this district home.

Mid Canterbury is home to many great businesses and the Awards are an opportunity to showcase their stories to a wider audience.

Any Mid Canterbury-based business can enter the Awards as long as they have a story to tell about their business and why they deserve recognition.

The entry process is simple and will provide a great opportunity to focus on the businesses core strengths and competitive advantages plus review and document achievements and milestones. Analysis leads to knowledge which leads to understanding which leads to improvement.

Judging Process

All entries will be acknowledged by the Ashburton District Council

Judges are carefully selected for their business skill and knowledge. Any conflicts of interest are established at the beginning of the process. The judging process for the Ashburton District Council Awards will proceed in two stages.

The first stage is the initial assessment of the entry by the Judging Panel and Awards Co-ordinator. The judges may contact your business to clarify any details on your entry or to gain any additional information.

The judges reserve the right to reassign entries into alternative categories if they determine this to be appropriate upon considering your entry. The judges reserve the right to decide on the number of finalists for each award based on the quality of entrants.

In stage two selected entrants will be interviewed by the judges, who will drill down in more detail on the entry and gain an overall impression of the business.

The interviews will be conducted in late January 2022.