THE man behind north Pembrokeshire organic milk products brand Daioni has won the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society flagship award.

The Sir Bryner Jones Memorial Award is hotly contested year after year.

With exceptional entries from 10 counties across Wales, the judges have had a difficult task whittling it down to four very worthy candidates.

The overall winner was announced on the first day of the Royal Welsh Show, where the four shortlisted contenders and their families attended presentations.

Since taking over the family farm in 1975, Laurence Harris, of Abercych, Boncath, and his wife have developed a major family dairy business. They now organically farm a total of 3,000 acres with 650 milking cows, young stock, beef cattle sired by home bred Hereford bulls and a 2,000 head sheep flock.

In 2002 the business moved into contract milk processing and specialist milk drinks sold in convenience packs, under the product name Daioni. The milk is sold through to OMSCO Co-op (The Organic Milk Suppliers Co-Operative) where Mr Harris has been a member since 2002.

Daioni products are a worldwide recognised brand. Daioni UHT organic milk products are sold for coffee in Pret a Manger outlets in Hong Kong and recently introduced into all French Pret a Manger Coffee Shops.

Originally, all UHT milk processing was carried out in Wales, but since 2015 the processing and preparation of the UHT Daioni product now takes place by using milk from OMSCO organic supplies at Credition, Devon.

The result of all this development is a business system with Trioni Ltd, the controlling company with Mr Harris as chairman and his wife Eira. Branded organic milk products are sold by Daioni Wales to UK outlets and Daioni Hong Kong Ltd, with son Ben as chairman, and selling into Hong Kong, Shanghai and Vietnam.

Other Daioni UHT products are exported to Middle East, United Arab Emirates, and recently into France. In addition, one million litres of Daioni fresh organic milk is sold via numerous outlets across Wales.

Thus, from the original farm activity in 1975 the farm and resulting dairy business now operates worldwide with a turnover in excess £4,500,000.