Specialist recruitment group Sanctuary Personnel has claimed the top honour at the 2017 East Anglian Daily Times Business Awards.

Sanctuary is a major supplier of staff to the social work, healthcare and criminal justice sectors and employs more than 250 people at its offices in Ipswich.

During the awards ceremony, held at Trinity Park, Ipswich, Sanctuary picked up the Large Business award, for firms with turnover of more than £5m, and also won The Youth Pledge category, for organisations helping young people into work.

And the event culminated with the group going on to collect the overall Business of the Year trophy, the recipient of which was chosen from among all the category winners.

In second place overall was C&K Meats, based in Eye, which won the Food and Farming Excellence category, and third place overall went to Aponic, based at Acton, near Sudbury, which won the Small Business award, for firms with turnover of up to £1m.

The awards were being staged for the 20th time this year and with the support of EDF Energy and Suffolk Chamber of Commerce as joint main sponsors for the sixth year running.

Another double winner was The Hearing Care Centre which won both the new Showcasing Excellence award for firms in the Ipswich town centre Business Improvement District and the Customer Care category.

The Medium Business award, for firms with turnover between £1m and £5m, went to the Bury St Edmunds-based Beckett Investment Management Group, and the One to Watch award was won by Events Under Canvass, from East Bergholt.

New awards this year also included Knowledge Catalyst, won by DJB Instruments (UK) of Mildenhall, and Social Inclusion, which went to regional poultry firm Bernard Matthews Foods.

Other awards recognising the role of businesses in the wider community included Corporate Social Responsibility, won by Ipswich-based Suffolk Life, and Community Involvement, which went to regional eye-care firm Observatory Wardale Williams Opticians.

There were joint winners of the Outstanding Achievement award which, unlike other categories, is made at the discretion of the judges and is not open to direct entries.

The honour, which recognises an exceptional contribution to the region’s business sector and the wider community, is shared this year by Dave Muller and Richard Lister in recognition of their roles in the project leading up to the creation of the University of Suffolk last year.

Other individuals recognised at last night’s EADT Business Awards ceremony included Ian White, managing director of the Bury St Edmunds-based Beckett Investment Management Group, who was named Director of the Year, and Holly Smith of Extreme Couponing UK, based at Hopton-on-Sea, who picked up the Young Business Person award.

For further details visit the dedicated awards website at www.eadtbusinessawards.co.uk. Full picture coverage of the award ceremony will appear in a special 20-page supplement in next Wednesday’s edition of the East Anglian Daily Times.