By RUSSELL LEADBETTER

CRAIG Tannock and his staff spent yesterday celebrating news of a “big, big surprise.”

Craig, director at the popular Glasgow vegan cafe bar venue Mono, was delighted to see it become the newest holder of the accolade of Glasgow’s Favourite Business.

The title, part of Glasgow City Chamber’s annual Glasgow Business Awards, was presented to Craig by Graham Shields, the Evening Times editor, in front of 700 guests at the Hilton Glasgow.

Votes were cast for the six contenders by email, and this year, for the first time, people could also vote by re-tweeting the name of their favourite contender by re-tweeting it on the Chamber’s Twitter page.

“I knew we had done quite well in terms of how the retweeting went, but I of course had no idea how the email votes went, so it was a big, big surprise to win,” Craig said afterwards. “There were a lot of really well-known and popular businesses in the category, so to win is just fantastic.

“I’m chuffed to bits and I’d just like to thank everyone who voted for us.” Mono later tweeted: “Thank you to all our devoted regulars & friends who voted for us. Much Love!”

Amanda McMillan, chief executive of AGS Airports Ltd and managing director of Glasgow Airport, expressed her delight after the airport won three awards.

It received the Bank of Scotland award for Most Outstanding Business as well as the accolades of Best Performing Business (51+ employees) and Excellence in Customer Service. When the BoS award was presented, 10 airport employees joined Amanda on the stage to take their bow.

The airport, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary, was in June awarded the Best Airport Award by the Airport Council International Europe (ACI Europe). In July, its monthly passenger numbers topped the one million mark.

“We’re absolutely thrilled,” Amanda said at the Hilton. “We have added 1.5 million passengers in the last 18 months. We’re intent on delivering for the passengers and we’re seeing that service continue to stand up really strongly when you have that level of growth.

“I’m thrilled for the guys at the airport because they have really worked hard.

“We are very flattered to have done so well tonight. It is very humbling to win all three awards. From our perspective it has been a journey for us over the last five or six years, so it does feel like the culmination of a lot of things.

“It’s fantastic that we have hit our highest ever number of passengers in our anniversary year.”

Ten years after joining TBR Global Chauffeuring, a worldwide ground transportation company, on a graduate scheme through Scottish Enterprise, Craig Chambers was presented with the award for Young Business Person of the Year.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” said Craig, who for the last year has been Group CEO. “It was unexpected but it is great to be acknowledged but I have to say that I would not have achieved it without the team behind me.”

The company turned over £25m this year but Craig conceded that “we’re not very well known among the general public, so it is great to win an award like this.”

Clyde Space, a global leading CubeSat and small satellite design and production company, won the Innovation in Business award.

“We are really pleased with the award,” said Andrew Strain, head of product development. “Our CEO and founder, Craig Clark, is from Glasgow, and we have been at these awards before, so to actually win an award is really good.

“There are a lot of people who work for Clyde Space who are Glasgow born and bred, and to have a space company based in Glasgow is quite unusual.

“It has been an excellent year for us. We have expanded, we have doubled in size in terms of the employees, our order intake is up, our revenue is up.

“We are in a market that is really expanding.”