A BUSINESS whose founder gambled £3,000 of his savings to set up 11 years ago has been rewarded with a highly coveted Queen's Award for Enterprise after B and H Polymers saw its turnover double in the last year to £60million.

In 1993 B and H Polymers boss Peter Hutchinson risked his savings on buying two bags of PET resin -- which is used to make plastic bottles and containers.

He offered the bags to two manufacturers and one offered him a contract. The gamble paid off and today the Leigh firm supplies 100,000 metric tonnes of PET resin worldwide each year.

The Queen's Awards for Enterprise are the UK's most prestigious awards for business performance. They are the business equivalent of the New Year's Honours for individuals and recognise and reward outstanding achievement by UK Companies. B and H Polymers is being recognised for its impressive growth in international trade with 75 per cent of its business now being done overseas.

B and H Polymers which supplies PET resin worldwide employs 15 people at its Moss Industrial Estate headquarters. It works in partnership with the giant Mitsubishi Corporation and its clients include Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

Mr Hutchinson is clear about his company's ambitions.

"I see us as the easyjet of the industry," he said. "We're unique in the way we operate. We've looked at the whole supply chain from production to site delivery. We can deliver high performance, low cost resin on a global basis to local sites."

B and H Polymers has state of the art equipment in a laboratory at its Leigh headquarters. Samples from every batch of PET are checked to ensure consistency of quality. Turnover has risen from £7million to £60million in five years and Peter Hutchinson is confident of continuing the extraordinary success story. He is particularly keen to focus on being environmentally friendly.

Last year the company opened a commercial office in St Petersburg in Russia and its own Recycling Plant in North Carolina, USA.

B and H Polymers supplied around 100,000 metric tonnes of PET last year of a worldwide market of around nine million tonnes.

"We're very excited about our latest development the Elixir Eco blend of PET," he said.

"It will revolutionise the way used plastic bottles are dealt with. In the past they've been reprocessed for other uses. Now they can be recycled and used again as bottles."

Mr Hutchinson said if the B and H revolution works the Leigh company could become a major force in the world market.