INNOVATIVE GROWERS were awarded more than £144,000 in this year‘s Home-Grown Cereals Authority Enterprise Awards.

The awards were presented at Cereals 2004 by junior DEFRA minister Lord Whitty (pictured with award winner Charles Jackson).

The projects will use an extra 962,550t of straw and 11,000t of wheat if they are successful.

Winners were BioRegional Minimills, which plans to turn straw into paper pulp, potentially replacing up to 20% of the wood pulp used in the industry.

Intelex has produced a range of soft toys filled with wheat which can be used as safe hot waterbottles, while Charles Jackson & Co has designed a straw-based pellet which can be co-fired with coal in power stations.

Strulch, a straw-based mulch developed by Leeds University will now be produced and marketed by Ingwermat with the aid of the HGCA award.