Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence are the island’s premier awards for businesses of all sizes, charitable and cultural organisations, individuals and public sector teams.

Get your entry in and you could be a winner and be presented with an award at this year’s awards night at the Villa Marina in November.

And, if you want to know how good that feels, hear what Miles Pettit, owner of Noa Bakehouse which won the award for Innovation and Independent Thinking at last year’s awards, has to say about it.

Miles, why did you enter the Awards for Excellence?

’I think we do such a range so people know of NOA for a specific purpose: if you’re into coffee you come into NOA for good coffee; if you like the events you come here for those, or you’ll engage with NOA for the Food Assembly. But I don’t think everyone understands all of the things that we do and entering the Awards was a good way to say that actually what we do is more than just one thing. It helped us put out there everything that we’re about.’

Why did you choose the Innovation and Independent Thinking category to enter?

’I felt that we had grown to a size that we were no longer a small business but we weren’t a large business either and it was more about stopping and saying that we’ve done some good things since we started NOA on the island - we’ve helped encourage some different avenues of business that weren’t on the island in the same ways before. It was about acknowledging that really.

It’s always great to stop and take stock of what you’ve done, how you got there and where you’re going next.’

What about the awards night itself - how did you find that?

’That was wonderful because all of the team came: it was a real team experience and it was a lovely thing for the whole team to celebrate.

When they called out our name as winners loads of people cheered and for our team that was really lovely. For me it was excruciatingly painful having to go up and speak and I was so sure that we weren’t going to get it but it was lovely for the team to see how much other people engage with what they are doing.

’The nice thing about the Awards for Excellence is that it’s an acknowledgement of what you’ve achieved as a team and where you’re going as a team and it shows that you’re on the right track.

’We had a really hard year last year: there were a lot of changes and we grew a lot again and it was nice at that point in the year to look at what we’d done and say: "Isn’t that great".

’I think that everyone had a really, really good night.’

What new innovations have you been pioneering this year?

’We’ve done loads this year. We’ve been quietly working on making some of the innovations from last year more viable, so we’ve been increasing our productivity in the coffee and we’ve been growing our pastry and cakes offering so that we can put them into Shoprite who have been really friendly and really supportive.

’That’s coming very soon when we have the packaging finalised and it’s something we’ve been working really hard on.

’And, yes, that will include everyone’s favourites, the almond croissants and cinnamon buns.

’We will be putting the focus on our bread next year with a different, speciality loaf each month, so we’ll have a lot of fun with that.

’I want the bread team to have more of a food development role: every single person in the Bakehouse has ownership of their role and they’re allow to innovate in what they do.

’We’re trying really hard to offer people careers, not just jobs.’

You can find details of all 16 award categories and download entry forms at www.excellence-awards.im. Entries close on Wednesday, September 20.

’The nice thing about the Awards for Excellence is that it’s an acknowledgement of what you’ve achieved as a team and where you’re going as a team and it shows that you’re on the right track.’