Showcasing the very best of the best – that is what the Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo Business Awards are all about.

The champagne corks popped after Omega Resource Group won The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo Business of the Year Award at a glittering gala evening.

The Stonehouse-base recruitment business with 70 staff and growth of 35 per cent a year took the HSBC-sponsored honour at the packed awards dinner at The Centaur at Cheltenham race course.

Founded nine years ago Omega has been so successful recruiting Polish workers to the UK that it now has a Warsaw-based office-finding Polish workers for Polish employees.

At last night’s award’s dinner Editor of The Citizen Ian Mean said a big thank you to the county businesses who have poured money into the Gloucestershire Flood Relief Fund following the July deluge.

He presented a moving video about the efforts to help flood victims and said of the £843,418 raised for the flood fund so far an incredible £709,604 had been contributed by businesses.

Andrew Blair, managing director of Gloucestershire Media which publishes The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo, said: “Gloucestershire is an exceptional place to live and do business.

“We have a wonderful environment and a diversity of  communities and businesses which I believe is unsurpassed elsewhere in the UK.”

For the full story and details of a special 16-page Business Awards supplement in Tuesday's Business pages in The Citizen and Gloucestershire Echo, click here.