Doddington Dairy has been a working farm in Northumberland for 50 years. You may think this makes it a bit too old to be featured in On the Up, but it's only fairly recently that the dairy's ice cream business has started, and taken off, and it's this that we think is going to get the country smacking its lips.

Run by husband and wife Neill and Jackie Maxwell, Doddington Dairy is one of the few remaining dairy farms in Northumberland. In 1993 they started making farmhouse cheeses to try to squeeze a bit more profit out of the business, and it worked. Their cheeses are now available at selected outlets around the UK and in the US through Neal's Yard in London.

But it was in 2000, the year they launched their first ice cream, that things really started to take off. "We wanted to diversify a bit. No one else in the area was making ice cream, so there was a niche to be exploited. It has steadily developed over the past six years and the ice cream business is now bigger than our cheese operation," says Neill Maxwell.

The ice creams are available mainly in north east England and south Scotland, through Asda and Waitrose and about 70 specialist stores, and the flavours are very much locally inspired.

The Newcastle Brown Ale and Aln­wick Rum Truffle lines are proving particularly popular. But it's a new range called From a Flower that has generated the most interest. Finding its inspiration from flowers, the new range comprises flavours including Rose, Saffron & Cardamom, Orchid Vanilla and Heather Honey. Each is packaged in a blue box that looks like a luxurious gift. "My personal favourite is the Heather Honey line," says Maxwell. "The hills up here look magnificent when the heather's out, and we buy the honey from a local honey farm that has several hundred beehives all over the area. It's as if we're getting a taste of the land through our ice cream."

There are plans to increase availability further south, and already the From a Flower range is available in Harrods and Harvey Nichols. It recently won the Sial d'Or 2006 award for best food product from the UK too.

With the nation's preoccupation with health and wellbeing in recent years, luxury food manufacturers will be encouraged to see a full-fat, indulgence product doing well. The ice cream is made from the full cream milk of Doddington Dairy's 250 Ayrshire and Friesian cows, mixed with double cream, sugar and egg yolks, as well as whatever ingredients make up the flavours, to create an "extremely elegant ice cream that is very real and natural", according to Italian chef and ice cream enthusiast Gennaro Contaldo.

It's the freshness of the end product that Maxwell particularly enjoys. "A lot of our produce is made within six hours of milking," he says.

The operation involves input from the entire Maxwell family, and this again is something Maxwell is proud of. "Along with myself and my wife, my two elder brothers run the dairy and arable parts of the farm, my sister is a cheesemaker and my father is the general overseer. It's something we value a great deal. Every member of the farm, including the van drivers and production staff, gets involved in flavour development."

This sense of community that the business brings to its products, complemented by its dedication to locality, has served it well in the absence of a big marketing budget. Maxwell says both these factors have been successful selling points so far. With no plans yet for advertising, the hope is that the website and word of mouth will continue to drive sales. "We use local flavours wherever possible. We have a good following up here and now we want to head south too."

He won't be compromising the luxuriousness of the product by launching a low-fat or healthy option. But you can be sure several new flavours will be launched in the near future. He says: "We're always developing and taking suggestions, so creating new flavours is very important."

Maxwell's only concern is that this can become a financial strain. "We're a small company and we don't want to stretch ourselves too much. Just because you have more lines doesn't mean you will sell more volume."

Nevertheless if the momentum continues, it won't be too long before From a Flower blossoms into a blooming good brand.