Five star social media campaign helps secure award for Stroud District Council
Published: Friday, 13 December, 2019
A social media campaign that celebrates local food retailers has helped Stroud District Council win an award for the way it supports local businesses.
SDC’s Environmental Health team was presented with a Highly Commended award for the way it helps small businesses in the district cut red tape around licensing, environmental protection and food hygiene at the Local Authority Awards organised by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
When making the award the judges commented:
“This council has worked extremely hard to support local businesses in areas such as licencing, food hygiene ratings and environmental protection and have even introduced a scheme called ‘Food Hygiene Fridays” to promote businesses that achieved the highest cleanliness ratings during the week. A photo of the winning company’s managers and their staff is posted on social media pages and has proved to be very popular with businesses and consumers alike and driven positive social media interaction.”
Doina Cornell, Leader of Stroud District Council picked up the award with Jon Beckett, Head of Health & Wellbeing. Doina said:
“It was great to see the hard work and initiative of the SDC team recognised with this award. It’s really important the council does what it can to support small businesses - as someone who works for my own family business I know how useful support and advice is with the inevitable paperwork you face. And lots of people tell me how much they like the Food Hygiene Fridays!”
Russell Warner, the FSB Area Lead for the Gloucestershire area, said he and his fellow judges were impressed with the submitted entries.
“We had more award entries for our awards this year and more councils taking part and so it is very encouraging to see the majority of the awards given out went to Gloucestershire councils.
“It is a testing environment at the moment for many small businesses so we hope these awards will serve to remind councils that SMEs do need and value the support their local authorities can provide. We look forward to seeing even more business friendly initiatives from Gloucestershire councils in 2020.”
For more information about how Stroud District Council’s Enviromental Health team can help your business see www.stroud.gov.uk
You can follow Five Star Food Friday on Facebook (@strouddistrictcouncil) and Twitter (@StroudDC).