THOUSANDS of bottles of flavoured spring water can now be found cooling in fridges all over the Maltese islands, only weeks after leaving a North Yorkshire farm.

In his first export venture, former dairy farmer Richard Blomfield successfully saw 24,000 bottles of his Springhill Water off his land at Fylingdales, near Whitby, in a lorry bound for Malta.

Mr Blomfield knew about the spring water on his land when he bought the farm in 1995, but it was not until three years ago, due to a downturn in dairy farming, that he and his family turned to it as an alternative income.

The former milking parlour and dairy, which once housed 200 cows, has made way for bottling machinery which produces about 20,000 bottles a day. Mr Blomfield and his son Richard, both directors of the business, have taken on five staff to help them cope with demand.

The Blomfields were given advice and support by international trade advisor Jeffrey Bean, at Business Link York and North Yorkshire, after meeting him at an exhibition in Harrogate in February.

Mr Blomfield, who has also received inquiries from as far away as South Africa, said: "When Jeffrey first mentioned export, I felt I was not ready for it, not until I met a Maltese exporter at another exhibition, who was interested in our spring water and sent samples of it back to Malta.

"Jeffrey has been - and still is - an invaluable help to us as complete novices to the export market.

Mr Bean said: "Any business that goes into export for the first time requires a lot of support and I provided Mr Blomfield with advice and guidance on documentation, labelling, pricing, marking and dating of goods, transport and languages."

* For information on the services provided by Business Link York and North Yorkshire, call (01904) 686000.