AlmondCo Australia took out the coveted South Australian Exporter of the Year Award at the 2016 Business SA Export Awards.

The Riverland-based almond processor won a hotly-contested competition for the prestigious award after earlier winning the Regional Exporter Award.

Rising Sun Pictures, which has been creating inspirational visual effects for international, blockbuster films from its base in Adelaide’s CBD for 20 years, was recognised with the inaugural Statewide Excellence Award for sustained success in overseas markets.

Business SA Chairman, Vincent Tremaine, said the Export Awards “recognise the best of the best and highlight the invaluable contribution the respective award winners are making to the State’s economy”.

“With great products, perseverance and old fashioned leg work, the Business SA Export Award winners have succeeded in offshore markets that are so much bigger than those at home,” Mr Tremaine said.

“Such efforts are absolutely vital to the economic future of South Australia,” he said.

Exporter of the Year, AlmondCo, is one of only four almond processors in Australia and exports half its annual throughput of 22,500 tonnes of processed almond kernels to the Middle East, South-East Asia and Western Europe from a processing and packaging plant at Renmark.

Rising Sun Pictures competes with the best in the world to win its work and is now generating sales of around $20 million per annum with employment of about 110 staff, which expands to around 200 people when workload increases in peak production season. Attendees were treated to the below showcase of Rising Sun Pictures latest work, all created from their Adelaide studios.

The full list of Award winners follows: