Manhole cover manufacturer Maverick Trading has walked away with the coveted Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Exporter of the Year award. The Brackenfell company, which manufactures manhole covers, frames and other products from polymer concrete, also received the Design Award sponsored by the S A Maritime Safety Association (Samsa). Speaking to FTW at the awards ceremony in Cape Town last week, Maverick Trading CEO, Cedric Simons, said exporting was not easy in the current economic environment and it came with its own stream of risk. The company, which opened its doors 14 years ago with a staff of just six, has grown into one of the Western Cape’s best local producers and exporters, said Janine Myburgh, president of the Chamber. Its products, which include gully grates and grids for storm water drains, are widely used to replace steel grates and covers that are regularly stolen for sale to the scrap metal industry. They are lighter, stronger and cheaper than the steel products they are replacing, and as they have no scrap value they are ignored by thieves. Nautic Africa, makers of fast launches and patrol boats, won the best Manufacturing Exporter of the year and the Cape Chamber’s award for innovation. Macadams International, a 100-year-old Cape Town company which manufactures equipment for bakeries, won the Gerald Wolman Award for Excellence in doing Business in Africa and Abagold, a mariculture company which farms abalone for export, was the judge’s choice for the Transnet National Ports Authority award for the best non-manufacturing exporter. The CCCI prize for transformation went to Diemersfontein/Thokozani Winelands, where farmworkers are now proud shareholders in the company, whilst cosmetic manufacturer, Oh Lief Natural Products, scooped the Small Exporter Award. CAPTION The jubilant Maverick Trading Team ... CCCI's Exporter of the year.
