An award winning food and drink business is relocating to keep up with growing demand locally and across the country.

Lakeland Artisan is moving from its former home in Staveley's Mill Yard to a site with four times the space on Kendal's Fell Business Park.

The artisan producers have been operating from their double unit in Staveley for 13 years, creating handcrafted preserves, liqueurs and drinks and winning more than 50 awards.

Managing director Geoff Monkman who runs the business alongside wife and fellow director Mary, said the new premises would allow the business to work more efficiently at the same time as doubling its production.

"It's been a long, long time coming," he said.

"What it will mean is that we can expand and grow the business."

As well as extra space, the site will also have an extra boiling pan for making its syrups and preserves.

"There is more space for storing finished goods," said Geoff.

"It's easier to pick up orders and we can palletise things more easily and then pop them on the forklift and onto the wagon.

"Our new site will not only allow us to produce more, but will save us time too.

"A direct example of increased productivity would be when our pallets of bottles and jars arrive; currently we need to spend a lot of time rearranging pallets and stock for each delivery, this will soon be dramatically shortened thanks to the specialist delivery bay we will have.

"With the extra time we can concentrate on what we do best."

Lovingly Artisan uses both national and regional distributors for its products, which are sold in delis and farm shops, as well the Co-op and Booths supermarkets.

Geoff and Mary, who live in Ings, started the business from a mobile kitchen in Haverthwaite in 2006 before moving it to Staveley.

The business employs seven people including three at its shop in Windermere. Geoff said he hoped as the business continued to expand it would create more job opportunities in the area.