FOUR Herefordshire companies have been shortlisted for a 'rural Oscar' in the Midlands category.

The Countryside Alliance Awards have returned for their 14th year and have now announced their regional finalists for the five categories.

Out of four shortlisted in the Rural Enterprise category, there are three from Herefordshire.

They are Eat Sleep Live, Two Farmers Crisps and Woodee Limited.

Carrot & Wine Stores has been shortlisted in the Village Shop/Post Office category.

The gold standard awards recognise the best of rural businesses and the champions will be crowned in June.

They are set apart from other award schemes because they are driven by public nomination, offering customers the chance to say why their favourite businesses are worthy of national acclaim.

Eat Sleep Live Herefordshire (ESL) launched in 2016 to provide the destination marketing service for Herefordshire in the decline of the local authority provision.

Entirely self-funded, with no public funding support, the team promotes the amazing places to eat, sleep and enjoy to not just a local audience, but regionally, nationally and internationally to develop the county’s essential visitor economy.

Two Farmers is a new range of crisps launched last year which use 100 percent compostable packets.

The crisps are made at Little Pengethley Farm and the range is the brainchild of south Herefordshire farmers Mark Green and Sean Mason.

Woodee Limited is based at Dorstone and run by Louise and Andrew Wright.

They make handcrafted fire pits, artisan tools and stylish accessories for wood burners, open fires and fire pits.

Carrot and Wine Stores have shops at Wormelow, Wellington and Whitney-on-Wye.

The shops, owned by businessman Mark Burch, focus on selling local, fresh produce.

They opened their Wormelow shop in June 2017, followed by Whitney in January last year and their Wellington branch in July last year.