Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence launched last week and this year, for the first time, they include a new award, Celebrating Our Local Food Producers.

We are hoping that many of our local growers, producers and sellers of wonderful Manx food will take the chance to enter.

Those who have entered the awards in previous years all say that just filling in the entry form provides an opportunity to reflect on the previous year and what they have achieved.

And we know that many of you have done amazing things that you would never have dreamed of doing when 2020 began.

Which brings us to another award new for this year, The Award for Doing The Impossible During The Pandemic. You have only to think back about some of the many ’impossible’ achievements we have covered on this page to know that the food and farming sector could provide lots of entries.

You can find the full list of award categories at http://www.excellence-awards.im/.

Entries close on Friday, January 15 and the awards will be held at the Villa on Friday, March 19.