Four years ago Mike Hamilton had little idea how successful his organic vegetable farm would be.

He began farming in partnership with John Davenport, of Flights Orchard Organics, and now enjoys a continuous stream of customers.

In the past few months, his business has blossomed as an awareness in locally-produced food has got consumers salivating for more.

An organic-box scheme, covering Herefordshire, Worcestershire and parts of Warwickshire and Birmingham, has grown from 300 a week last May to 1,100 a week in recent months.

Mr Hamilton also supplies a few restaurants from his business in Ledbury, Herefordshire.

He said: "Our box scheme has trebled in the last nine months. Back in May we were doing 300 boxes a week through the summer. We attended local food fairs and the BBC Good Food Show and now we are doing 1,100 a week.

"The phone goes constantly with people wanting to join the scheme and overall our business this year against last year is up by 30 per cent, so there is a huge growth.

"There is a lot of awareness, people want food which is produced locally as much as they want organic vegetables. It is as important that we are local, smaller and ethical as it is that we are organic.

"We do farm walks - people can come and have a look around and see where their food is grown.

"Obviously, that is not something you can do via the supermarkets. We wanted to push that point of difference."

Mr Hamilton said restaurants were beginning to take advantage of local foods as a way of pulling in customers.

"We are getting more interest in the wholesale part. Restaurants are wanting to put on their menus about where they are sourcing food from rather than trying to keep it a secret.

"It has to be the right sort of restaurant.

"Being organic tends to be a bit more expensive and chefs find it more difficult to meet our price.

"Luckily for us the whole local food thing is growing on all fronts.

"We want to supply the whole of the West Midlands.

"We are increasing grain programmes all the time and have got more land on conversion and we have groups of growers who have joined us to increase our capacity."

The farm supplies the Newtown Inn at Newtown Cross, Herefordshire, and Nature's Choice in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire.

In the past it has also supplied The Hippodrome in Birmingham.