With Morecambe Bay just down the road, you would have expected a bracing blast of sea air on a January foray to Flookburgh. But when I arrived at my destination the new industrial units just off Moor Lane all I could smell was success...

The Cartmel Village Shop Sticky Toffee Pudding company has just moved into a purpose-built bakery.

On the face of it such expansion would seem to suggest a more automated future for the nation's not to mention Madonna's favourite sweet treat but, as I discovered when I stepped inside, nothing could be further from the truth.

What the move has done is give everyone much more elbow room. It's also created a further half-a-dozen full and part-time jobs.

No more machines, just more people, the secret ingredient in Cartmel Village Shop sticky toffee pudding and ultimately what makes it so special. It might be labour intensive but it works wonders for quality control.

In terms of size, the new bakery is a far cry from the cramped arrangements in which Jean and Howard Johns first produced the puddings in a small kitchen at the rear of Cartmel Village Shop with the help of a second-hand domestic oven bought for £25 through The Westmorland Gazette's classified section.

That was in the late eighties. The pudding went on to enjoy phenomenal success via the likes of Fortnum & Mason, Selfridges and Booths - not to mention hundreds of speciality food shops up and down the country, including Rick Stein's Padstow deli.

Howard and Jean's son Simon, who trained as a chef at Kendal College, has also launched an American branch of the business called the English Pudding Company which counts Madonna (pictured top right) among its many fans.

To keep up with demand on the homefront, Jean and Howard transformed the village shop into an upmarket deli and constructed a purpose-built pudding kitchen at the bottom of their nearby Cartmel garden.

But as the business continued to grow, so did the needs of staff. The garden bakery opened in 2000 but only a few years later it had already outgrown itself.

In the meantime, the Johns had acquired the former Flookburgh youth centre and had been using it to store all their pudding packaging. As luck would have it the building came with a good chunk of land, a chunk certainly big enough for a brand new bakery.

Local funding initiative Distinctly Cumbrian liked the idea and duly awarded a £70,000 grant. The Johns footed the rest of the bill a not insubstantial £875,000.

The sticky toffee team moved in just over two months ago and, in the run-up to Christmas, helped the business achieve 35 per cent more sales.

"It was a demand we were unable to supply at the old kitchen because there was so little room," explained operations manager Charlotte White.

Flookburgh will, in fact, only allow for a limited expansion of pudding sales having gained a stronghold in Scotland, for example, opportunities are already being explored in Wales and Ireland.

However, where the Johns family really wants to diversify is in retail and ready meals. If all goes according to plan, foodies should be able to taste the results by Easter.

This diversification' might not have a name yet, but the corner of the Flookburgh bakery destined to house the new shop is already starting to take shape.

Its aim will be to provide holiday-makers of which there are many in an and around the area with prepared fruit and vegetables perhaps, sandwiches, savoury tarts and quiches, a bottle of wine perhaps, a choice of ready main meals and puddings. This service will also be available for people looking to pick up dinner on their way home from work.

"We've got the concept in place but if you can think of a name we'd be very grateful," mused Charlotte, who joined the Johns three years ago.

She knocked on their door for a part-time job to help fund family life and her love of horses. But the Johns knew her business degree was too good to waste and have utilised her expertise to help them develop the company. Having Charlotte in situ has also meant the couple can ease back a bit, working six days a week instead of seven.

For her part Charlotte is extremely proud to be a member of the team. She told Food & Drink: "Howard and Jean are the best employers around here. Their business could have become automated but they value people and they protect their staff.

"They choose people because they are local and we are all given hours to suit ourselves. It keeps everyone happy."

And happier still since they have been given a spacious new environment in which to work, added Charlotte.

"Just because we have got bigger premises, doesn't mean to say we are going into mass production. It is about meeting demand but it is also about making life easier for our staff. It is still the same product, produced by the same method."

And practically all of it by hand soaking the dates, mixing the sponge, filling the baking trays, loading the oven, stirring the toffee sauce, pouring it onto the pudding, fitting the lid, packing and date-stamping this scrumptious confection ready for dispatch.

Cartmel Village Shop Sticky Toffee Pudding's proud boast has always been its home-made' quality it used to say on the packet.

Last year, however, the Food Standards Agency had a national labelling clampdown and ordered the Johns to remove it from their packaging. As there isn't a conveyor belt in sight, the family daughter Sarah and son-in-law David Holliday help run the business too - asked if they could call the puddings hand-made instead. The answer was no' because they use an electric mixer (who doesn't?).

Instead, the pudding label now proudly proclaims this particular sticky toffee pudding's extra special provenance "the original and genuine". (Howard and Jean still use Cartmel Valley milkman Tom Addison as they have done from day one, for example.)

It is a pedigree which, despite increasing competition, is standing Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pud in good stead.

Maintaining quality is key. More puddings yes but more people to make them not machines.