WITT’s legacy looms large at Top Shop Awards

A wholefood bakery, a café and a hair salon won WITT-sponsored awards at the 2025 Taranaki Top Shop Awards announced last weekend.

WITT was the sponsor of two food awards - the Food and Beverage Eat in Category, won by Elixir Café with a Highly Commended to The Bach on Surf Highway; and the Food and Beverage Take Out Category which went to The Unbaked Bakery.

The Hair and Beauty award – also sponsored by WITT - went to The Station Hair Company.

These awards – organised by the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce - signal WITT’s longstanding connections in providing training and qualifications for these services in the region, says WITT Deputy Director Angela Ferguson, who presented all three awards. She leads WITT’s hospitality and hair, makeup and beauty programmes.

In her speech at the awards ceremony on Saturday, Angela - a former professional chef with international experience who has been with WITT for almost 14 years, said WITT has been part of the community since 1972 when it was called Taranaki Polytechnic.

“We’re a big part of the Taranaki community and while the look of WITT has and will continue to change over the years, we intend on being a big part of the community for another 53 years.”

Hair and beauty are among the most popular courses at WITT, with a bevy of programmes in hairdressing, makeup and skincare, barbering and beauty therapy, as well as short courses in massage therapy and nail enhancements, she explained.

“For those of you who’ve had the pleasure of dining at WITT in our training restaurant, Impressions, you’ll know what fantastic facilities we have.  As with hair and beauty, you’d be hard pressed to go into any hospitality establishment in Taranaki and find someone who hasn’t done some form of study at WITT over the years.”

“While we use our professional kitchen facilities during the week for our day-to-day education purposes, we also support the community through offering free access to these facilities to a couple of charity groups, Bellyful and Vaimoana Charitable Trust, who prepare meals for those in need.  They are also utilised by some small businesses who need commercial kitchens to prepare their amazing products.”

She mentioned that WITT has been part of Feastival Taranaki in recent years, hosting events and cooking classes. “In the next Feastival Taranaki in September we are collaborating with On the House to host a dinner at Impressions Restaurant where all proceeds will go to On the House - a very worthy charity supporting our community.” 

Tickets go on sale in mid-July.

Taranaki Chamber of Commerce CEO, Arun Chaudhari says, “The Chamber is grateful for WITT’s ongoing support and encouragement offered to businesses. Many of WITT’s graduates work in our local hospitality and hair and beauty sectors and it was obvious many of them were in attendance on Saturday night.”

The Taranaki Top Shop Awards have been running for over 20 years. This year there were 13 categories, and the overall Supreme Award winner was Dalgleish Diamonds.

Caption: Angela Ferguson with Elixir Cafe winners at the Top Shop Awards.