“We were working on the basis that there were very few people in the world – probably about 15 – who made 30 gauge knitwear,” Mr Geeson said. I believe in this country there is a significant opportunity if you can find a niche market product and ally that to marketing and manufacturing skills.”He had made socks and worked in exporting high-quality textiles before setting up the factory in Long Eaton, with 24 workers There are now 120. “My view of the textile industry is that this can be either high quality, niche market or bulk production. Mr Geeson, whose name is the same as his label, says a “raison d’tre” is essential. Peter Geeson has achieved a turnover of £2.5 million from scratch in five years, despite being in the same county as the brand-leader in sheer knitwear, John Smedley, a few miles away across Derbyshire. The awards illustrate, however, that despite the proliferation of manufacturers and designers, and the predominance of retailers such as Marks & Spencer, there are still profitable niche export markets to be exploited.Haven Country Classics was founded on a wide-brimmed waxed hat and Peter Geeson on 30-gauge (ultra-fine) knitwear. While export awards to Barbour, Gossard and knitwear manufacturer Peter Geeson, point to refined quality and material as the principal attractions of British clothes, awards have also gone to the cheaper end of the market.
They include the London-based international division of Freemans, the mail-order Clothing Catalogue, and Haven Country Classics, whose mid-market range of waxed clothes is much cheaper than Barbour’s.

One of its largest customers is Mobil Shipping, which fitted double mechanical seals on cargo pumps used for unloading crude oil. Fifteen years after being set up, AES has grown from five to 145 people.. The bowler hat and rolled umbrella have been toppled as trademarks of British style. The British look now starts with the foundation garments – probably a Gossard Ultrabra, a warm Chilprufe vest or the ubiquitous St Michael knickers – and continues with outerwear from Marks & Spencer or Paul Smith, exclusive knitwear from the Midlands, and ends with a waxed jacket and a pair of Dents gloves. The ensemble is confusing – as is the message sent by overseas markets to the British clothing industry. The company developed a propeller with high-pressure water jets fabricated on to the blade tips to rotate it.

It operates without any physical contact with the sea bed, and is safe to use on live pipelines and other structures prone to damage. It also performed 400 times faster than the equipment it replaced when working on the Bruce field.Among the other small winners is Pan Liner Agencies, an international shipping and forwarding agent which provides a door-to-door delivery service, invoicing and documentation, and arranges letters of credit. With 10 employees, it has recently opened new markets in Asia and Africa.A company which started with five employees and an unpromising connection – it supplied the Midlands steel and coal industries – has won its third Queen’s Award.AES Engineering, of Rotherham, took over a tiny Derby engineering company after it lost the right to distribute an American-made mechanical seal, and went on to patent a new type of seal which compensates for angular misalignment in pumps.Chris Rea, AES’s managing director, said the move had originally been a matter of survival, but the product was a world-beater and won a Queen’s Award for technological achievement in 1988.North America, which was AES’s original supplier, is now its biggest market. It began to export in 1988 and is strong in Belgium and Holland, where it works alongside Biobest, a producer of bees for the pollination of crops.Mr Jupe said: “Over the next 20 years we expect biological control to increase but it will be a long haul to change people’s behaviour and practices away from what they’re used to.”With just eight employees, Underwater Excavation of Porthleven, Aberdeen, has won a Queen’s Award for technological achievement. Sometimes you can get them to come off themselves but sometimes you actually sell the culture as it is.”BCP, which has grown to 35 people, is now one of three major producers of natural predators. Nigel Jupe, an agriculturist who moved from the other side – the chemical pesticide industry – and the fourth director, said engineering a natural process could be complex “Harvesting the insects is particularly tricky. If a wine merchant from Tokyo or New York wanted 10 cases of different vintages, they’d have to go to many different suppliers in France, but would only need one in England.” Farr now exports wine to the Far East and the USA as well as Europe.The small world of parasites and predators has brought business success to an entomologist, an agronomist, and a plant pathologist.

Dr John Dale, Phil Walker, and Dr Robin Penna breed mites and parasites to tackle the red spider mite which bedevils greenhouse crops, the western flower thrip larvae, which attacks sweet peppers and flowers, and whitefly, which wreaks havoc on aubergines and other crops.Biological Crop Protection (BCP), of Ashford, Kent, works alongside Wye College, London University, to find and breed natural predators. “If you’re a wine merchant in France you only tend to sell wine from your particular area. Now with a staff of 14 people, the company was set up by Lindsay Hamilton, fresh from Harrods wine department, and Stephen Browett, a French graduate who once drove a van for a wine shop, to specialise in fine wines.Its turnover last year was £15.25m, with the average price per bottle £30 “The French can be quite chauvinistic,” Mr Browett said. Small does not come particularly cheap, however, with the range starting at £364.When a French wine-lover wants to acquire a ‘45 or ‘61 Bordeaux, it would seem logical that the easiest place to acquire it is France. The fact that this is not the case has helped the success of Farr Vintners, of Pimlico, for which France is the strongest export market – usually of French wines. They can be taken on to buses, trains and aircraft as luggage. The fascination for the bikes has been a great export strength for the firm, says company administrator, Nicola McGregor: “We don’t do much marketing.

In the Netherlands, one of our two main markets, our two distributors are absolutely sold on the bicycle and do it for us. We’re a very small company; it’s difficult enough keeping up with demand for the bikes.”Annual production is now approaching 5,000, with 60 per cent going abroad. “The idea of these CDs is to encourage people to speak,” Mr Howeson said. The CDs are now exported to 30 countries, including Russia and India.Small is the essence of the Brompton Bicycle Company. Its bikes fold in less than 15 seconds to the size of a small suitcase.