Clive's Fruit Farm, which picked up two awards at the Platinum Awards for Business Excellence, has been harvesting the fruit for two generations.

The business grows 18 varieties of apples, which it sold to big multiples such as Asda and Tesco until plummeting prices forced it to consider diversifying.

Owners Charlie and Jane Clive decided to branch out and build an on-farm juicing and bottling plant, with the help of a £26,000 grant from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Some of the farm's produce was already being pressed off-site but bringing the venture in-house meant reduced costs and greater control.

Since the press started operating in October, sales of the family's apple juice through the farm shop have trebled, helped along by the fact shoppers can see their juice being made from the special viewing gallery.

"People seem to really like the fact they can see the juice being pressed from the viewing gallery," said Mrs Clive.

The Clives were spurred on to seek funding for the press by the success of their first business venture, which was to convert a disused pig shed into a children's nursery.

Little Blossoms Nursery, which opened in October 2001 and now caters for 85 children, took the Chairman's Special Award at the ceremony last night.