ENTRIES are already arriving for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business Awards 2003 which will highlight the jewels in the region's industrial crown. Although a total of £9,000 will be awarded across the eight categories, the prestige that goes with winning an award in East Lancashire's premier business competition will mean far more for the victorious companies. Business Editor ANDREW CALVERT has spoken to some of the winners of the 2002 Awards to see how their businesses have progressed.

WINNING the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business Awards 2002 was the start of a remarkable 12 months that saw Promethean collect a clutch of glittering prizes and culminated in the company taking the Queen's Award for Enterprise.

But despite the Blackburn-based organisation taking one of the 'Oscars' of the national business awards, being named East Lancashire's Company of the Year was a definite highlight.

"I was absolutely thrilled when I learned that Promethean had won," said managing director Stephen Dury. "It was a great credit to the team who had worked so hard for the business. I thought the Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business Awards were very important for our staff and for the local people who work with us. They gave us recognition which we valued very highly."

Promethean has developed a world-class interactive whiteboard technology which is sweeping through schools in the UK. Its ACTIVboard system is now sold through a network of offices in France, Germany and the USA and is marketed in a further 23 countries. Marketing manager Donna Shaw said the company, part of the TDS Group, had taken on an additional 80 staff over the past year to take its workforce to around 200.

In addition to the Queen's Award for Enterprise, the company won a CBI Award for Business and was named among the fastest-growing technology companies in the UK by Deloitte and Touche.

Rossendale-based communications specialists Lammtara Multiserve has not looked back since winning the keenly-contested prize for Innovation. The company has emerged as one of Europe's leading communications companies.

The innovative business, set up in the front room of a house in Rawtenstall by Barry Sharples and Neale Graham, has just seen its turnover triple for the fourth year running. It opened an office in Atlanta in the United States this autumn where it believes there is enormous potential for the company which now employs 25 people in Rawtenstall.

It lists among its clients blue chip companies such as Argos, BP and Cadbury. Yet despite its international success, Lammtara remains delighted to have won the Innovation and Design Award last year.

"While we operate globally, it was nice to be recognised locally," said Barry. "It is good for local people to know it is not all doom and gloom in Rossendale."

Farmhouse Fare has enjoyed phenomenal success over the past year since winning the Lancashire Evening Telegraph New Business of the Year Award.

For Helen Colley, the woman who founded the business in the kitchen of her home in Gisburn, it has changed her life. A mother of three young children, Helen now regularly jets to London for business meetings to meet the supermarket executives who buy her range of sticky puddings.

These buyers include Morrisons, Spar, Sainsbury's, Asda and Costco - and the list is growing all the time as the company piles up awards for its homely products.

The firm, which now employs over 30 people, has humble beginnings and dates back to a time when Helen would drive around the Ribble Valley in a van delivering her puddings. Now, Farmhouse Fare is located in purpose-designed premises in Clitheroe, but the traditions continue.

The recipe for the sticky toffee pudding was passed down by Helen's great-great-grandmother, Janet Anderson, whose picture from 1858 features on all the Farmhouse Fare packaging.

Helen has still not forgotten the moment she collected her first business award. "It was just like the Oscars," she said. "Everyone at Farmhouse Fare was thrilled with the award, it was so unexpected."

A total of £9,000 in prize money is available across the eight categories - Company of the Year, New Business of the Year, Workforce Development, Marketing, Innovation and Design, Customer Service, Ambassadors' Award and Deal of the Year. Entry forms explaining the competition rules are available from Business Editor Andrew Calvert on 01254 678678. Closing date for entries is January 31, 2004.