Hey Ho Let’s Sew is the official sponsor of the Small Retailer of the Year Award.
After winning Micro Business of the Year in 2024, they returned in 2025 and did it all over again. This time taking home the Sustainability Champion Award.
Now, in 2026, they’re returning to the Wigan Business Awards in a completely different role.
From being recognised to recognising others
One of the things we love most about the Wigan Business Awards is seeing what happens after awards night.
Winning is a brilliant moment, of course. But the connections, confidence and relationships built around the Awards can continue long after the trophies have been handed out.
Hey Ho Let’s Sew is a fantastic example of that.
Their first win in 2024 recognised what they had achieved as a growing micro business. A year later, their commitment to doing business more sustainably earned them another place on the Wigan Business Awards stage as our 2025 Sustainability Champion.
Rachael McEntee, co-owner of Hey Ho Let’s Sew, said:
“We’ve had such a brilliant journey with the Wigan Business Awards over the last few years. Winning Micro Business of the Year in 2024 was a huge moment for us. To come back the following year and win Sustainability Champion made it even more special.
Co-Owner Jo [surname] continued
“We know how much it meant to us to have the business recognised, so it feels really lovely to come back this year as a sponsor and support other local businesses getting their moment in the spotlight.”
Big achievements don’t need a big business
There’s a false perception that business awards are for the companies with huge teams, enormous turnovers and marketing departments putting together glossy entries.
They’re not.
Some of the most impressive stories we see each year come from small businesses and independent owners who are quietly doing remarkable things.
Hey Ho Let’s Sew proves that point rather nicely.
They didn’t need to be a multimillion-pound company to become an award-winning one.
What mattered was what they were achieving, the way they were running their business and the impact they were making.
That is exactly why we have categories designed to recognise businesses of different sizes and from different sectors.
Celebrating Wigan Borough’s small retailers
Small independent retailers bring something to our towns that can’t be replicated.
Behind the shop fronts are business owners choosing stock, serving customers, managing costs, marketing their businesses, building communities and doing about seventeen other jobs before lunchtime.
The Small Retailer of the Year Award celebrates those businesses and the people behind them.
Having Hey Ho Let’s Sew sponsor the category feels particularly fitting because they understand how it feels to put yourself forward for an award and to sit on the other side of that judging process waiting to hear the result.
This year, they get to experience it from a completely different perspective.
Coming full circle
We talk a lot about the Wigan Business Awards being more than one night in November, and relationships like this are exactly why.
In just three years, Hey Ho Let’s Sew has gone from entering the Awards, to becoming a two time winner, to supporting the next group of local businesses stepping forward.
That feels like a pretty good full circle moment to us.
We’re delighted to welcome Hey Ho Let’s Sew as the official Small Retailer of the Year sponsor for the Wigan Business Awards 2026.
Thank you for continuing to be part of the Wigan Business Awards story and, this time, for helping us celebrate somebody else’s.
