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Encouraging product innovation - Concept & Innovation Awards open for entry 
01/03/2021
The Baby Products Association, the UK’s trade organisation supporting manufacturers and suppliers of baby goods and promoting safety in the UK, has announced that its 2021 Concept & Innovation Awards are now open for entry.
The awards have provided the spring board for numerous innovative new baby products over the years including
the revolutionary Doona car seat with integrated wheels; the 5 Point Plus safety harness which stops a child escaping from car seat belts; Sandsliders – a simple device that allows pushchairs to be pulled across a beach or gravel; the Rockitportable stroller rocker; and the 2019 winner CotCool – a safe air conditioning unit that attaches to the cot side to regulate the temperature within. This is expected to arrive in shops in summer 2021.
Robert Anslow, managing director of the Baby Products Association explains: “Innovation and product safety are one of the prime missions for the association and over the years we have been presented with some extremely interesting and innovative ideas. Some of these turn out to be too ambitious in terms of manufacturing costs and realistic retail prices and there are always concerns about how some of the designs will be able to comply with rigorous testing and safety standards.
“The Baby Products Association judges are a team of experts with many years combined experience in all aspects of baby products from design and manufacture, to safety and compliance to retail and marketing. They have been able to advise and guide entrepreneurs and help and support them in their journey to market. Sadly there have also beendisappointments along the way, with some who have invested thousands of pounds in trying to launch a product idea, which the judges simply don’t see as being viable.”
The Concept & Innovation Awards have always been presented and announced at the UK’s only baby trade show, Harrogate International Nursery Fair each year, but had to be postponed because of the Covid pandemic in 2020. With the announcement from the government that Covid restrictions will be lifted for events from 21st June 2021, the show is now planned to go ahead from 27th to 29th June 2021 once again providing the platform for the awards.
Entries are invited fromanyone with an interesting and unique baby product idea – this could be from companies already working in the sector, mumpreneurs (or dadpreneurs!), to college and university students – the only criteria is that the product must not be launched into the market place prior to the trade show in June.
Julie Milne, membership and technical manager for the Association, explains: “The product ideas submitted can be anything from just a simple idea which has just been drawn out with explanations about how the product will perform; to products which have already reached the prototype stage and are much further along in their journey.”
More information and entry forms are available to download from the website at www.b-p-a.org – the deadline to submit entries is 12 noon on 30th April 2021. These will be shortlisted, with the finalists invited to Harrogate International Nursery Fair to present their ideas to the industry.
