Firms from across the Bristol area were this week celebrating gaining the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in recognition of their growth in international trade.
The firms included Research, design and innovation specialist Kinneir Dufort, specialist web ink and varnish manufacturer Pulse Roll Label Product, and Vistair, the airline safety software specialist which supplies its innovative products to many of the world’s largest airlines. 
Also gaining the award were Third Dimension Software, which makes metrology products, and Radiodetection, a world leader in location and inspection technology.
Privately-owned Pulse Roll Label Product, which employs 35 people at its Yate factory, pictured below, and has been trading for 14 years, received the award for international trade in recognition of outstanding growth in overseas earnings over the past three years.
Managing director Gary Seward said: “Our success reflects the time, commitment and effort of our employees, combined with on-going support from our valued customers, partners, suppliers and other industry associates located all over the world.
“The award embodies many of the core values we strive to uphold and we are all extremely proud of this outstanding achievement, which is a standard of commercial excellence recognised worldwide.”
Pulse Roll Label Products has been supplying high-quality inks and varnishes for the global narrow web label printing market since 2001. A specialist product range includes UV curable and water-based inks and varnishes for flexo, screen and letterpress printing, low migration products, special effects, digital varnishes, primers, adhesives and more.
The company exports to more than 50 countries. Overseas customers are supported through an extensive network of partners and distributors around the world, or directly from the UK.
Overseas sales at Kinneir Dufort, which develops new products for major international firms such as BT, Reckitt Benckiser, 3M and GE Healthcare, soared by 41% in 2012 to £1.6m, and increased again by 95% in 2013. 
Some 60% of its work is now carried out internationally, in markets from South Korea to Sweden.
Kinneir Dufort was founded in Bristol in 1977 and has since grown to a team of 75, with clients based in the UK and around the world. Its work aims to solve challenging technical design problems while creating products that create class-leading user experiences.
As well as its main facilities in Bristol, the company has a satellite office in Cambridge, which will be a centre of excellence dedicated to furthering Kinneir Dufort’s work in the field of medical device design.
Managing director Jim Orkney said: “We have worked hard over the past decades to build a company that doesn’t just solve technical problems, or make beautiful objects, but brings both together to create items that have a real impact on people’s lives, and in so doing brings significant business advantages for our clients.
“Receiving an award like this is testament to the fact that we have brought a world-leading team together here in Bristol. Our brilliant designers and thinkers are leading the way in cross-discipline design for sectors as diverse as life-saving medical devices to food and drink, and in the industrial and business to business field, for clients of all sizes.”
Chief executive Peter Marchbank said: “Exporting is now the lifeblood of our business. In the last five years we have invested heavily in our systems, processes and people to enable our exports to increase substantially.”
Wotton-under-Edge-based advanced engineering group Renishaw gained its 17th Queen’s Award – the first of which it secured in 1979. The latest award – in the Innovation category – was for the development and manufacture of its RESOLUTE product.
Founding chairman and chief executive Sir David McMurtry said receiving a Queen’s Award was still very special as they continue to be regarded as the UK’s most prestigious awards for recognising commercial and technological success.
The awards will be presented to representatives of the company at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in July.
