On the day his business was honoured by the Queen for its export performance, the boss of a Skipton healthcare products business was boarding a plane to settle in Atlanta, where the firm has established its first overseas base to develop the US market.

Ben Curtis was the joint founder, with John Chacksfield, of Trio Healthcare Group Ltd, which was today named as one of two local winners of the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.

Also receiving royal recognition is expanding Shipley electronics company Radio Design Ltd, which has received an innovation award for its product enabling multiple mobile phone companies to share the antenna systems used to transmit and receive the radio signals.

Trio chairman John Chacksfield said the eight-man firm started in 2006 now had a turnover of more than £2.5m selling its UK-made products globally. About 65 per cent of its business is based on exports of its innovative skin-care products, including adhesive removers, skin barriers and absorbent gels.

Trio has distributors in more than 20 countries across Europe, South Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia and has almost quadrupled its export earnings over the past three years Mr Chacksfield said: “Winning a Queen’s Award for International Trade is fantastic. Having this royal recognition will be really helpful in helping us develop the US market as we will be able to display the Queen’s Award logo on our marketing materials.

“We remain very busy, and I believe achieving this prestigious award will benefit the business tremendously. We continue to operate with a small team at Broughton Hall, but Trio supports many jobs in this country as all our products are made around the UK.”

Eric Hawthorn established Radio Design after being made redundant by Saltaire-based electronics company Filtronic Comtek in 2007. He launched the new company with a team of former Filtronic electronics engineers.

Radio Design now employs around 100 people, mainly in the UK and also has operations in India and Finland.

As well as the mobile phone technology, the company also repairs base station equipment from all over the world. With around five million base stations worldwide, this side of the business has grown to more than £2m a year.

The business nearly doubled its turnover in the last financial year from just under £9m. Mr Hawthorn said it was regularly recruiting sales and engineering staff, mainly in the UK.

It would continue to focus on innovation and had several product patents pending, which Mr Hawthorn hopes will come to fruition in the near future.

He said: “We are honoured to have received this award which recognises engineering excellence and the hard work required to turn this into a commercial success.

“The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are an internationally-recognised symbol of excellence which will greatly assist with the promotion of our business both at home and abroad.”