DONNA Kelly thought she had scooped the coolest job in the world when she was promoted to taster in an award-winning ice cream company based in Calne.

But she has discovered sampling luxury ice cream every day has its drawbacks. The deputy product manager of Hill Station's ice cream factory, in Port Marsh Industrial Estate, has put on a stone in 12 months.

Miss Kelly, 43, of Lansdowne Close, Calne, said: "When I first came to the factory I was like a child in a sweet shop, I loved it, particularly the chocolate flavour."

Her enthusiasm for ice cream has cooled, however, now that she has to constantly taste test batches for consistency. One of the perks of working for Hill Station is that staff are able to take home samples of ice cream, but again, you can have too much of a good thing.

Miss Kelly said: "I don't eat a lot of ice cream any more, but I still take some home for my children."

She added: "Putting the weight on doesn't make any difference to me. People take me as I am, even if I'm looking like an elephant."

The company's vanilla flavour won first prize in Country Life Magazine's British farmhouse ice-cream competition.

Judges praised Hill Station ice cream for its use of classic English ingredients and commended it for its fresh, clean and pure taste.

Hill Station's American founders Gina and Charles Hall, from Axford, near Marlborough, were delighted by the accolade. Mrs Hall, 40, said: "Receiving an award like this is a huge honour. It's the best compliment you can have knowing people love your product as much as you do.

"We have always believed that the closer we make it in the factory to the way we make it at home, the better our ice cream will taste. People are always looking for quality, a better choice, and something exciting and different. We feel that's what we can offer them."

The Halls launched Hill Station, which supplies ice cream to Harrods and Harvey Nichols, five years ago. Despite fierce competition from ice-cream giants Haagen-Dazs and Ben and Jerry's, they have proved their ice cream is set to stay.

But unlike their ice cream, not everything began smoothly. When they started testing their ice cream six years ago one of the first batches of vanilla caused a minor disaster.

The Halls and their staff gathered excitedly around the pressure mixer waiting to catch a glimpse of the finished product, but nothing came through the distributing hose.

Mr Hall thought the pressure in the mixer could be preventing the ice cream from flowing properly. He began unscrewing a small viewing porthole on the side of the machine to reduce the pressure inside.

But as it was loosened, the pressure fired the metal porthole into the air like a rocket, drenching the factory, the staff and the office windows on the first floor in warm ice cream.

Mr Hall, 52, said: "The factory was a major mess. We were cleaning vanilla ice cream off the walls, the machinery and each other for the rest of the day."

The ice cream is named after the hill stations, built across the tropics to provide cool retreats from the sweltering heat of the lowlands and cities. Based on this concept, the Halls have married tropical fruits and spices with Britain's best dairy products.

Vanilla is still the most popular flavour but there is also cardamom, cinnamon, stem ginger, bittersweet chocolate, mango and lime, toasted coconut and dark rum, spiced coffee and just recently dark roast coffee.

Hill Station ice cream is marketed at 'grown ups', as it says on the side of the tubs, because it has less sugar in it than ordinary ice cream. But it is still popular among children.

Mrs Hall said: "When we first came to England we were amazed that a country with such excellent dairy produce had such a limited range of quality ice cream. You could only eat it if you had a sweet tooth and there was nothing for adults."

The Halls were both working for large multi-national companies when they were posted to London in 1993. They had always dreamt of starting their own company together, but they didn't know what product to market.

They noticed there was a niche in the British market for high quality ice cream, so Mrs Hall left her job and began touting her homemade ice cream to delicatessens in London.

Her experiments were so successful the couple decided they could cause a ripple in the ice cream world.

Mr Hall left his job and the couple moved to Calne to set up their factory. They chose to live in Wiltshire because it is a major source of dairy production and is well connected to London. They were also moved by the county's scenery.

Mrs Hall said: "Friends are always surprised how beautiful it is here when they come to visit. They have no idea it's so calm and quiet in the country."

Despite the chilly atmosphere at work, Hill Station's ten workers, who all live locally, love their jobs. The Halls insist every employee has a go at every job to be done in the factory, and that goes for the bosses too.

Since its humble beginnings in 1997 Hill Station has gone from strength to strength. This year the company expects to make 500,000 of its £3.95 500ml tubs, twice as much as last year, which are supplied to 400 independent shops and 150 Tesco supermarkets.