AN overseas trade award from the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Business Festival 2003 is the first for Haygrove Tunnels, of Ledbury.

Director John Berry said the award was good news for both the profile of the company and for staff morale.

He said: "I think it's wonderful to see at a time when UK agriculture is depressed that there are still pockets of real opportunity in the industry. The award is a reflection of that."

After building up a sound national customer base, Haygrove Tunnels began to target overseas customers in 2000.

"It's been very successful, hence the award," explained Mr Berry.

"The overseas trade used to make up about six per cent of our turnover. Now it's about 25 per cent."

The company was praised by judges for carrying out "significant market research in all its target markets and really understanding prevailing local market conditions".

Now farmers in North America, Africa and New Zealand all benefit from the tunnel technology which began development in the mid 1990s, after soft-fruit growers Haygrove Ltd established a sister company to find ways of improving farming polytunnels to increase crop yields.

"We found they were too weak or you couldn't get a tractor in them," Mr Berry said.

Having won the award, the next step for Haygrove Tunnels is to use a government grant of several thousand pounds to fund research and development.

Then the company hopes to advance its plans for a "smart tunnel" which hopes to bring greenhouse technology to the field.