We're forever hearing the call to eat locally these days – to support your regional producers, and cut down on food miles.

But often, ironically enough, cutting down on your food miles seems to involve a lot of driving around from one farm shop to the next.

But the new shop at Marshfield Bakery is devoted entirely to local produce – from the moment you step inside, it's like a celebration of West Country food.

There's Tracklements chutneys, from just down the road at Malmesbury, Anstee's bread from Bristol, Cotswold Spring Water and puddings from Prue's Meringues – a fellow Marshfield company.

And there's a range of Marshfield Ice-cream, another local food business, not to mention, of course, the wealth of products available from Marshfield Bakery itself.

In fact, everything you pick up in the shop has such low food miles you feel as though you could see its place of origin out of the window.

The new shop is perched on the side of the bakery, on the busy A46 at Dyrham.

It's the latest chapter in a remarkable success story, for a modest family business that started life with flapjacks baked in the kitchen of their Marshfield home.

These days, the bakery is bordering on factory-sized proportions – producing 15,000 bars a day – whether the familiar flapjacks, or the equally popular shortbread and tiffin.

But it's remained very much a family affair, with founders Lynne and Paul White still running the show as production director and managing director, and their son Ben on board as sales director.

When I arrive, even daughter Becky (who runs her own business making bespoke handbags) has called in to help out behind the counter in the shop.

"We are very much a family business," says 28-year-old Ben, who was just four years old when his mum started selling her home-made flapjacks.

"I remember the business growing as I was growing up," he says. "The house was filled with baking equipment throughout my childhood. You could always smell flapjacks being baked."

For mum Lynne, baking had simply been a way of making a little extra money in the early days.

"I had worked in the catering industry, but had given it up when Ben and Becky were born," she explains. "But 24 years ago I started making things for shops in the village – quiches for the local butcher initially.

"I'd do a load of baking, and Paul would go off into the village with all the trays of food in the back of his car. That proved surprisingly successful, so we moved on to making cakes and flapjacks, displaying them nicely in baskets. Then we'd take them into delis in Bath and ask if they'd try to sell them – on a sale or return basis.

"A few days later we had calls saying they'd sold out and they wanted us to make some more. The whole thing has just progressed from there – we really haven't looked back since."

As the business took off in the 1980s, Lynne moved into a bakery shop in Marshfield High Street. "A few years later, and we'd outgrown the shop," Lynne says. "So we moved to a farm a few miles outside Marshfield and converted the buildings around the farmyard into the new bakery."

But 18 months ago, the company made its biggest move yet – to the purpose-built factory building at Dyrham.

"This was a big leap," Ben explains. "The real challenge for us has been to maintain the integrity of the products, even though we've moved away from the cottage industry environment. It's important to us – we don't want to outgrow ourselves."

The new site was opened formally by the Duchess of Cornwall in February.

"It was a lovely day," Ben says. "The Duchess had a tour of the new bakery, and then stayed on for a cup of tea and a piece of flapjack afterwards.

"She's always very supportive of local food producers, but it was wonderful for her to take the time to visit. It was a real landmark day for the business."

The bakery now employs a team of 16 people, some of whom have worked for the company for more than a decade.

It's a lively place to work, and the new purpose-built, state-of-the-art oven can churn out up to 20,000 bars and 80 fruit cakes each day – with 3,500 bars in the oven at any one time. As a result of the move, the company has been able to step up a gear commercially – selling products to delis, coffee shops and farm shops across the country, and to supermarkets in the South West.

The company's bite-sized treats also prove popular as hotel bedroom nibbles and Christmas hamper fillers. In fact, these days, you can pick up a Marshfield flapjack on a First Great Western train, or a British Airways or BMI flight. The White family has even started taking orders from America, France and, perhaps somewhat obscurely, Slovenia.

"Things are going well," Ben says, as he leads the way through to the food production area.

"But we still use Somerset butter, Wiltshire eggs and flour from the Wessex Mill.

"In fact, our recipes and ingredients are still exactly the same as when my mum first started making her flapjacks in the kitchen of our Marshfield home 24 years ago. Only these days, of course, everything is on a much bigger scale.

"We always try to stick to the notion that there shouldn't be anything we make, that a housewife couldn't turn her hand to in her own kitchen if she scaled everything down."

Marshfield Bakery has come a long way from since its humble beginnings as a canny money-making venture in a housewife's kitchen.

There is a general feeling of bustling activity across the bakery, with flapjacks being made in enormous trays on one bench, while a neighbouring area has two ladies working on the shortbread.

The enormous bakery oven consumes one side of the room, while on the other side a purpose-built wrapping machine is churning out and labelling scores of fruity flapjacks.

"The wrapping is the only part of the entire process that we've mechanised," Ben says. "All the cooking side of it is done very traditionally."

He adds: "The fruity flapjacks are one of our new lines. We're constantly trying to come up with different ideas. We're also working on a fruit cake made with beer from Wadworth 6X, which is based just up the road in Devizes.

"That's the key to a business like ours," he adds. "Coming up with new things, while also maintaining our core products and that simple cottage industry ethos."

For more information, visit www.marshfieldbakery.co.uk or call 01225 891709