A WOMAN who started making ice cream at home because she could not find any of a "decent" quality in the shops could be on her way to having her product stocked in a major supermarket.

Rachel Hicks started making real English, traditional ice cream in her home in Hollybush, near Ledbury, having been called back from her post-university travels because her father was seriously ill.

Fifteen years later, she has just come runner-up in the inaugural Times and Waitrose Small Producers Awards for her damson and sloe-gin ice cream, described by judges as "awesome - so creamy and fruity".

Ms Hicks, who looked in Victorian recipe books for inspiration, now employs five people at a converted dairy in Bromsberrow, near Ledbury, where she makes up to 15,000 litres of ice cream a year, in 14 flavours.

Favourites include gooseberry and elderflower and rhubarb, orange and Cointreau. The company - Just Rachel Quality Desserts - also makes desserts and tortes that go to restaurants and hotels all over the two counties.

Ms Hicks uses milk and cream from a Hereford dairy and fruit from local producers, factors which went down well with the judges at the awards, which celebrate small-scale producers who use home-grown vegetables, fruit and meat in products "just like mother used to make".

"All through the 90s we worried about BSE and slaughterhouses, ruthless agri-business and genetically-modified wheat," said a spokeswoman for the awards.

"Happily, however, a conscience about animal welfare and the environment coincide with a concern for our palates."

Ms Hicks was up against a naturally skimmed blue cheese made to an original recipe and a raisin and walnut sourdough bread, both from Dorset, for the produce category award.

Also recognised in the awards was Mousetrap Cheese, an unpasteurised farmhouse cheese made by Karen Hindle, in Monkland, Herefordshire.