The Giftware Association is incredibly excited to announce the shortlist for this year’s Gift of the Year competition. Despite the challenges faced globally, the creative industry has shown no signs of slowing down, and this year’s competition is the biggest yet. With an incredible amount of innovation and creativity on display, the judges have had a tough time choosing their favourites for the first round of judging, which took place throughout December.
This year’s shortlist has been expanded due to demand from their judging panel, and to reflect the scale of some of the most popular categories, such as “Ethical Gift of the Year”. This year’s competition has been judged by over 100 judges, all retail experts, and the consensus is that it was the hardest to judge to date because of the amount of quality on display. The Giftware Association would like to express a huge thank you for the time and expertise given by the judges, who worked through the Christmas break to select the shortlist in each category. This year, the judges were able to use the new system in place, and some standout products have received record votes in each category.
Chris Workman, Marketing & PR Manager for The Giftware Association said “This year has been a fantastic year for us, as we have grown the competition, attracted brand new companies to the awards and refined our categories. Some of the products that have been entered are very exciting, and we can’t wait to showcase this year’s shortlist to you and celebrate the incredible entries in this year’s awards competition.”
The shortlist this year reflects all the hard work and innovation from the gift and homeware industry, despite all the challenges being faced with staffing, logistics, rising costs and so on. The Gift of the Year blog shares some of the stories from their entrants this year, as well as some of the success stories from past years’ competitions.
Check out the shortlisted entries from the 19 categories over on the Gift of the Year website. Click here.
Congratulations to all of the shortlisted companies. The next round of judging will be held live for the duration of Spring Fair where the products will be on display in Birmingham, NEC.
