The main sponsors for this year’s event were:

GSF

Logoplaste

Quinn Glass

Kosme

Prior to the dinner, BBI National Chairman Colin Barker and President Ed Binsted presented the Gold, Silver and Diploma awards to this year’s winners of the Ales, Lagers and Cider competition that was staged in July. (Results of the competition can be viewed in the BBI News section of this website).

Patricia Donovan of Ballydooly Cider Company, New Zealand receiving their Award.

Fergus Fitzgerald of Adnams receiving their Awards.

Following a champagne reception the dinner took place in the Great Hall, during the course of which John Bexon, Head Brewer of Greene King brilliantly proposed the toast to the BBI. Opening on a light hearted vain John noted that this dinner was the 51st and, in looking around, suggested that there may be many who attended the inaugural dinner in 1955. John also remarked that Greene King had only just replenished their stock after the BBI visit 18 months ago.
More seriously, John complimented the BBI for offering many opportunities to network with like minded people and to share best practice. Johns’ role of Head Brewer is to produce a range of fine English Ales for Greene King, on time, right volume and highest quality, John has seen changing and challenging times and stated that Brewers who lead by innovation and adapt to change will fair best, “We work in a fun industry, talk it up rather than down”.
John ended his toast by urging members of the BBI to continue promoting and raising the profile of the Drinks Industry.

John Bexon, Head Brewer of Greene King, proposing toast to BBI.

In his response Ed Binsted announced an increase in membership during 2008 and that there were more entries for the BBI Competition than previous years including an entry from Ballydooly Cider, New Zealand. The BBI had stands at Interpak and the PPMA Show and there was a busy schedule of Industry visits invigorating the idea of sharing best practice and Ed thanked those companies that allowed such visits. Thanks were expressed to John Yates for his work for the BBI as General Secretary over the past years; John is now stepping down from this role.
Ed introduced the BBI Achievement Award winner who this year is The Glenmorangie Company represented by Pete Nelson, Operations Director of Glenmorangie. Glenmorangie were nominated for their wonderful rebranding and repackaging of all the Glenmorangie brands. This was coupled with the announcement mid way through the year that they are to build a brand new £47m Greenfield production facility in the Lothian area, together with a new H.Q. in the city of Edinburgh.

On receiving the award Pete responded by saying that Glenmorangie policy was to concentrate on fantastic single malt whiskies and they are determined to drive their brands to the top of the luxury spirits market place around the world supported by quality, presentation and packaging.
They are downsizing activity to focus solely on luxury brands and concentrating on a culture of delivering a perfect product using innovative technology. They are channelling all effort into development of core brands to innovate visual perfection. Pete also thanked all his colleagues for their contribution and dedication, as well as the support from bottling machinery manufacturers MBF, emphasising that the achievements at Glenmorangie were due to a whole company effort.

Pete Nelson, Operations Director of Glenmorangie, receiving the BBI Achievement Award.

The BBI Achievement award is made annually to any company or individual who in the opinion of the BBI Council has made a significant or unique contribution to the bottling industry. Krones UK via their new Managing Director, Andrew Wilson, have kindly agreed to sponsor the Achievement Award for another five years.

Our guest speaker for the event was Duggie Brown who became established as a national entertainment figure by appearing on the hit TV show “The Comedians” in the 1970’s. As a very lively comedian Duggie provided a high finish to the evening with his variety of jokes and tales.

This year’s raffle was for Help for Heroes and raised a record amount for a single charity of £1000, they were nominated by a new dinner sponsor, Richard Portman, Managing Director of Kosme UK.

Judging by the feedback, during and after the dinner, the event was seen as successful by the hosts and guests.
The primary role of the BBI is to foster networking opportunities for its members and we do greatly appreciate receiving as much feedback as possible both to the events which the Institute organises and to thoughts on any future events.
The Dinner Committee would like to thank our Sponsors and our Table Hosts for making the evening a success. Without their help we would not be able to hold our Gala Awards Evening.Table water was also supplied by Highland Spring.

The competition next year will be soft drinks and mineral water with a number of new categories to reflect the growing number of new products that have been introduced to the market this year.
The competition will take place on the 7th July 2009 and next year’s dinner will be on Monday 23rd November 2009, again at Vintners Hall.

Visit our sponsor’s websites:

GSF................................................. http://www.gsfsandylight.co.uk
Logoplaste................................... http://www.logoplaste.pt
Quinn Glass.................................. http://www.quinn-group.com
Kosme........................................... http:// www.kosme.co.uk /

Also visit:

Geene King website ................. http://www.greeneking.co.uk
Glenmorangie website ............ http://www.glenmorangie.com
MBF website .............................. http://www.mbf.it
Highland Spring website ......... http://www.highlandspring.com

Dinner Organised by Andrew Broadbent
Report by Brian Gibbs, BBI Website Coordinator