A FARMER who set up a dog lovers' website and turned it into a successful business was honoured at the North-East Export awards last night.

Mandy Bainbridge, who runs Colliewobbles, a website that offers a range of mail order gifts for Border Collie and dog lovers, won the UK Trade and Investment new exporter award.

Mrs Bainbridge and her husband, Marcus, run a farm at Egglestone, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, and launched the business to boost their income.

They were also awarded government funding to expand the business to include a range of sheepdog and agility courses at the farm.

The North-East Chamber of Commerce event recognised three companies for their exporting achievements, with others highly commended by the judging panel.

Peter Johnson, of Techtonik, in Sunderland, won the Lloyds TSB achievement award for outstanding achievement in export. His computer software company has seen turnover rise from £750,000 to more than £30m thanks to its move into the text-betting market, allowing people to place bets using their mobile phones.

Adrian Teasdale, of Inovica, in Newcastle, was presented with the innovation in export award. The company created an encryption programme that protects Internet programming language, stopping the theft of information and images from websites.

Darren Jobling, of Eutechnyx, was highly commended in the achievement category for developing leading video games.