They liked it so much, they've decided to enter again - that's the message from Mr Bill Ramsell, operations director of the Odlum Group in Cork, winners of the mediumsized business category in last year's National Innovation Awards.
Last year, it was heat-treated flour which won the accolade for Odlums; this time around, the candidate is Odlums' Quick Bread range of bread mixes, developed in Cork, manufactured in Dublin and packed at its division in Portarlington, Co Laois.
"We did all the R & D here. There's seven in the family at the moment. We have huge exports to the United States and the UK as well as a big market here," he says.
Since its win last year, Odlums has increased its sales and is discussing a technology transfer with a major milling company. The running time has gone up from 70 hours a week this time last year to 100 hours now.
"We have major new customers, mostly on the continent," Mr Ramsell reports. "One of the areas we have been working with is a potential client in the States, who's interested in putting in a similar type of plant."
Heat-treated flour, he explains, is pre-processed in terms of enzyme de-activation. "We control the viscosity to within certain parameters so it has particular applications for soups, sauces and ready meals.
"More unusually, one of the products we have been doing is using the flour as a carrier for vegetable oil in the bakery trade. As tins travel along a line, oil is sprayed on and very fine flour is used as a carrier.
"We're also supplying product to Hasbro in Waterford (the toy manufacturers) for children's play dough."
Odlums' product range has continued to expand, with some 20 diverse products now listed, and with this new process they have the ability to tailor-make flours to the needs of individual customers.
Odlums was founded in 1934 as an independent flour mill by local merchants R & H Hall, J W Greene and Suttons, the coal merchants. It employs between 30 and 35 people.
In Belmullet, Co Mayo, the winners of the small business category last year - Selc Ireland - continues to expand. It now employs 52 people, putting it firmly in the medium-sized category. Mr Sean Noone, the managing director of Selc, forecasts that turnover will increase by more than £1 million (€1.27 billion) in the current year, while the last year has seen a growth of some £750,000 in turnover.
The company has signed several important new contracts and formed strategic alliances in other countries. "A lot of new business has gone into different countries now," says Mr Noone. "We've opened up a solid line of business with Spain and opened an office there. We have also established a major distributor in Denmark, which is itself a government agent with the main electricity distribution authority. We're in the process of being approved by Railtrack in Britain and similar railway authorities in Norway and in the Caribbean."
For Railtrack, Selc has developed what Mr Noone describes as "the world's most reliable time clock, the most user-friendly and the most accurate". He says it's important to them that the clocks are user-friendly.
"Time changes one-and-a-half minutes every day. In a solar clock, you don't have to touch it. You fit and forget. Any solar clock in the world at the moment is too complicated to programme. If not programmed correctly for railways, they give the wrong information."
Selc has what Mr Noone describes as "a fairly sophisticated lab" which recently was moved to the Lisbaun Industrial Park in Galway and which has developed this clock.
While these new developments are in line with what the parent company set out to do - "I started with the first solar generator, probably the first electrical convertor of its kind. I was before my time" - time-lighting control products have been one of the mainstays of Selc's business over the years.
Developed in conjunction with the ESB - with local branches at first, he emphasises - Selc has developed what is probably the most reliable and sophisticated range of public lighting accessories now available for street, airport and public area lighting. These range from photocell devices that switch lighting on or off, depending on the prevailing daylight levels, to sophisticated timing devices that automatically adjust switching times according to in-built software algorithms.
The 1999 overall winner was Tellabs, based at the Shannon Industrial Estate, Co Clare, which was awarded the prize for the development of the AN2100 Gateway Exchange. This is part of the next generation of voice/data switching equipment, which allows significant cost reductions for telecommunications companies trying to route data and voice calls. "Tellabs' profile significantly increased in Ireland as a result of our wins at the National Innovation Awards last year," says Mr Pat Shanahan, vice-president and managing director of Tellabs.
"We maximised it through an effective recruitment campaign that led to 72 new hires in the six months following this award. Being acknowledged as a leader in innovative technologies also strengthened our relationships with customers, while being a motivator for Tellabs' employees who had put extensive efforts into bringing the AN2100 Gateway Exchange to market," he says.
The awards are sponsored by Forfas, PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Irish Times.
The closing date for applications for this year's National Innovation Awards is Friday, May 26th. Entries should be addressed to Ms Martina McDonnell, STI Awareness Programme, Forfas, Wilton Park House, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, or can be submitted via the website, http:/www.forfas.ie.
