Eileen Gardener of the Growing Businesses team at Inverness and Nairn Enterprise (INE) and Investors in People advisor, Mark MacKintosh try out a Handmade Hammock before partners Joy Blair and Malcolm MacKintosh leave Inverness for the Ideal Home Exhibition in Birmingham (Wednesday 14th March to Sunday 8th April).

Joy and Malcolm set up Handmade Hammocks in 1998 with help from INE's Business Start-Up programme. The business, which imports handmade hammocks from the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, has been a real success story with the business now sustaining two full-time jobs and showing significant prospects for expansion.

In addition to supplying the Mexican hammocks - which Joy and Malcolm discovered when travelling in South America - the business also supplies traditional style canvas hammocks together with frames and suspension fittings as required.

INE, part of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise network, has recently helped the couple with marketing assistance via the European funded HIE-Marks programme. This has allowed the couple to secure a stand at this month's Ideal Home Exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham, where they are also launching the Homemade Hammocks website.

Joy Blair said: "This is our first time at the Ideal Home Exhibition and so far the reaction to our hammocks has been tremendous. We have had good sales since the Exhibition opened last Wednesday and there has been considerable interest in the products with buyers taking details which we hope they will follow up on.

"With invaluable advice and assistance from INE, we have also launched our website at the Exhibition which is a full e-commerce site. We hope that using the internet as a marketing and sales tool - as well as attending trade shows - will result in increased business for us."

Head of Growing Businesses at INE, Ruaraidh MacNeill said: "Growing businesses is a priority for INE and through various programmes we are able to help new business starts as well as established businesses who need advice or assistance about expansion. Handmade Hammocks has gone from strength to strength and is an excellent example of a business which has made good use of the services that the Growing Businesses team can offer.

"We would urge more businesses, whether just starting out or well established, to get in touch with INE and let us help them become another Highland success story."