Event caterers GIG receive Queen's Award for Enterprise in International Trade
Event catering company Global Infusion Group (GIG) has been presented with the Queen's Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
The award was presented by Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, the Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire, to Tony Laurenson, GIG's founder and chief executive, to celebrate the company growing overseas earnings consecutively over the past three years.
Laurenson said he was "deeply honoured" to receive the UK's highest accolade for business success. "We now have offices on the east and west coast for the US market; Qatar for the Middle East; and Shanghai, catering across Asia and the Far East," he said. "Soon we will be opening a branch in Brazil to service the South American market."
Speaking at the presentation ceremony at GIG's headquarters in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, Sir Henry added: "GIG has established niche catering subsidiaries which cross-pollinate trade as well as making strategic acquisitions to support sales and supply chains."
Originally launched as a backstage catering business for the music, entertainments, film and TV industries, the company has gone on to cater at functions at Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street and the London 2012 Olympics, as well as overseas at the Great Wall of China and the ice fields of Inner Mongolia. The company today employs 160 full-time staff, supported by 1,000 freelancers worldwide.
GIG is one of five hospitality and catering companies to receive the Queens Award for Enterprise in International Trade this year, alongside Cooking Marvellous, Electronic Temperature Instruments, Garrets International and Loch Fyne Oysters.