A YOUNG farmer has scooped a top food Oscar for organic milk.

Jess Vaughan, 26, who is a member of the Olveston Young Farmers Club, walked away with the Organic Producer of The year title at the prestigious Cotswold Life Food and Drink Awards last week.

The young farmer has run Jess's Ladies Organic Farm Milk for 18 months from the family home of Hardwicke Farm, near Gloucester.

She said: "We started bottling our own milk on site in November 2006.

"We saw an opportunity to produce fresh milk and we have been going from strength to strength ever since.

"This is the type of award you have to get nominated for by your customers as you cannot enter yourself, so it is quite a compliment to think our customers like our product as much as we do.

"We were finalists last year but to win this year is fantastic."

Jess's Ladies Organic Farm Milk, which has just 80 cows, supplies milk to more than 60 shops and cafes including the Tortworth Estate Shop and Riddifords on Thornbury High Street.

The small business pasteurises its own milk at the Hardwicke Farm, which has been farmed by Miss Vaughan's family for three generations, and milk is on the shelf within 12 hours of milking.

So passionate is Miss Vaughan about her organic milk and the welfare of her cattle she refers to the cows as the ladies.

The sixth annual Cotswold Life Food and Drink Awards were held at the Beaufort Polo Club at Westonbirt last Monday.

For more information about Jess's Ladies Organic Farm Milk visit www.theladiesorganicmilk.co.uk.