The Smithers Chamber of Commerce hosted the 2019 Community & Business Excellence Awards over the weekend.
Local businesses came together on Saturday (Nov 16) at the Prestige Hudson Bay Lodge to see who the winners were of the 15 awards that were up for grabs.
According to President of the Smithers Chamber and Branch Manager of the Bulkley Valley Credit Union Greg Wacholtz, this year was the biggest turn out the awards have had.
Wacholtz team was also the big winner of this year’s awards winning Business of the Year and Customer Service Excellence, Individual.
For Business of the Year, the credit union was up against Roadhouse Smithers and Local Supply Co.
Wacholtz said he was proud of the Bulkley Valley Credit Union.
“I was very proud of my staff and the results with the contest, however, we had stiff competition from the other candidates and would’ve been just as happy had the other candidates one,” he said.
Another award that was up for grabs was the Environmental Business of the Year award.
Nature’s Pantry was the winner of the award and they were up against Bugwood Bean and Smithers & Area Recycling.
Monica Howard, Nature’s Pantry Co-owner said being environmentally friendly has been hard since the burning down of the commercial depot.
“We are moving to create a larger bulk section again, our first phase was maybe six years ago purchasing a large dispensing unit and now we are in the works of organizing another space of increasing the bulk because we do see customers want to bring their own package in,” she said.
Other winners throughout the evening included Bulkley Valley Wholesale, Witsuwit’en Wednesday and the Smithers Fire Department.