Tomlow Honey was set up by amateur beekeeper David Stott in 2001 based at Thorn Furlong Farm in Stockton.
Now producing 16,000 lbs of honey each year, David has received funding from the Rural Enterprise Grant (REG) programme to enable him to take the company to the next level.
Funding worth £17,000 has been awarded to support the renovation of the building and installation of equipment which will enable him to speed up the honey extraction process four-fold.
David Stott, owner of Tomlow Honey, said: “I’d been a keen amateur beekeeper and honey maker but as time went on it became more and more of a full time occupation.
“Eventually I started to work full time and since then the business has just grown and grown up to the point where I was having to turn down requests for stock.
“This new facility, supported by the Rural Enterprise Grant, has helped make a step change in capacity, more than doubling the amount of honey we can produce.
“The REG funding has helped move this along much faster than we would otherwise have been able to and will really make a difference to what we can achieve as a business.”
Funded under the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) which is managed by Advantage West Midlands and administered by Herefordshire Council, Rural Enterprise Grants are available for farmers and micro businesses developing and diversifying into food and drink, environmental technologies and tourism improvements.
Funding of up to 40% (or £62,500) can be secured towards projects that range from new processing machinery and supply chain equipment and improvements to tourism experiences.
Dorothy Coleman, REG Programme Manager, said: “In just a decade, Tomlow Honey has gone from a spare time occupation to a company whose produce is in demand across Warwickshire and beyond.
“It was clear that the production process needed to be much more professional if the company was going to expand and we are delighted to have been able to help with this.”
The Rural Enterprise Grant (REG) has been successfully supporting farmers and rural businesses for over two years and to date has approved over £2 million of grants. The project steering group has recently reviewed the eligibility criteria and extended the range of activities that are eligible to rural businesses.
In addition to projects linked to priorities like tourism, food and drink and environmental technologies, farmers can now apply for grant funding linked to Care Farming, education, on-farm retailing, farm shops and non-food processing.