A couple who started up a fudge-making business from home are tasting sweet success as the business prepares to move to a 4,500sq ft factory.

Lily and Adrian Turner, who live near Bury St Edmunds, started Yum Yum Tree Fudge in 2009.

Today, they are producing 10 tonnes of fudge per year using locally-grown beet sugar and British butter and milk as their base ingredients.

They are now gearing up to move to a new premises at Woolpit Business Park, which is set to be completed in early 2020, enabling them to increase their production capacity to 100 tonnes of fudge a year.

MORE - Adnams Copper House gin and Suffolk strawberries lead the way as £1m of locally produced food and drink soldThe business, which has a strong presence at country shows and events across the eastern region, supplies 52 East of England Co-op stores. A further 74 Co-op outlets are potentially in the pipeline once the building works at the new fudge factory are completed.

"Our aim is to make the UK's best quality fudge," said Adrian. "We are disrupting the market by innovating a new kind of fudge that has less sugar and more flavour. Also, there has never been a brand in fudge as there is with chocolate. We want to be that first brand not just in the UK but worldwide."

The couple have benefited from regular business advice and training services from Suffolk and Norfolk enterprise agency MENTA, which provides a range of support for established businesses and start-ups.

MENTA runs free start-up 'Start Right' business training workshops held across Ipswich, Bury St Edmunds, Sudbury, Norwich and North Walsham. The set of three, four-hour sessions cover all areas of business including legal structures, marketing and book keeping and are funded by the European Regional Development Fund. They are unaffected by Brexit.

"We found the start-up advice we received from MENTA extremely useful," said Adrian. "It isn't easy to start a business and to speak with a knowledgeable adviser who had run their own enterprise helped enormously."

MENTA boss Alex Till offered his congratulations to the Turners. "I wish them every success with their expansion plans as they endeavour to become a worldwide brand. It shows that with determination, vision and a unique product what a local business can achieve."

For details of MENTA services, visit www.menta.org.uk or call 01284 760206.