Hessle-based company, the John Good Group, attended the Yorkshire and Humberside Family Business Awards, with the first-class celebration held on Friday 11 November at the Headingley Stadium, Leeds.
Organised and run by The Family Business Community, the awards provide a fantastic opportunity to celebrate with family businesses from across the region.
The sixth-generation family business beat strong competition to reach the final stage of the awards, with a record number of 186 businesses entering from across Yorkshire and Humberside. Finalists received a visit from a specially selected panel of expert judges before the final decisions were made ahead of the award ceremony on Friday.
In what has been a challenging time, Best Social Impact was awarded to the John Good Group for their commitment to social impact and compassion for their community through their Charitable Foundation.
The Matthew Good Foundation is an integral part of the group’s approach to being a responsible business and their vision of being a force for good, with aspirations to fulfil the wider purpose of wanting to leave our world in a better state than that we inherited, by factoring people, planet and performance into all their future business decisions.
Michelle Taft, Executive Director of the Matthew Good Foundation, said: “The Matthew Good Foundation is the vehicle for the John Good Group to support charities and projects that positively impact people, communities and the natural world while empowering all our employees to get involved in philanthropy through our employee giving programmes. Winning the Best Social Impact award is a fantastic achievement, of which we are incredibly proud and is a testament to all involved in making our Foundation what it is today.”
The John Good Group also wrapped up the evening by being awarded with Family Business of the Year, a prestigious award which is decided from the winners of each judged category.
As a business which shapes and defines its identity around being a family business, winning Family Business of the Year will be a notable achievement within the group’s history and coincides with reaching a significant milestone next year of being founded and operating as a family-owned business for 190 years.
Adam Walsh, Group CEO, said: “It was a fantastic evening hosted by The Family Business Community and we’re delighted to come away with both accolades this year. The John Good Group is a special business, being sixth generation, and it’s great to think we will go into our 190th year of trading as Yorkshire Family Business of the Year.
“We believe that family businesses can be a huge driver of change, and with so many major challenges facing communities across the country, now is a critical time for us to step up to the plate.
“Our business aims to put the environment and the communities we operate in at the heart of our choices, even to the detriment of profit. It was great to hear the stories of many other family businesses doing the same thing at the awards night and as a cohort, I’m sure that we will be a force for good well into the future for people across Yorkshire and beyond.”