In 2000, at 6am on a winter's morning, it's minus two at Portobello Market in London's fashionable Notting Hill. Stalls are being set up and a newcomer is patiently building a little hut. Half an hour later she's ready to meet the critical eye of the public for the first time. And what they see are tiny jewels of biscuits all patiently made throughout the week. Little ovals of ginger, orange and oat biscuits; fig, white chocolate and sultana; and small rounds of walnut and vanilla shortbread all fight for attention. Chunks of dark chocolate peek from the 'very chocolate' variety.

Made from the best ingredients they look as though they're baked by someone's grandmother. They are the building blocks and mainstay of Popina who eight years later has just become a Food Hero – an accolade given to small top quality producers by Waitrose, the supermarket that boasts it always sources the best. Add to that a public endorsement from Prince Charles, who Popina is supplying with biscuits for his new upmarket brand Highgrove, and you get some idea of the astonishing rise of this venture that started out from such humble beginnings.

When you talk to the company's founder, Isidora Popovic, she's pleased at its success while seeming pleasantly surprised at its rapid rise. She started her business 'with a little grant from the Prince's Trust', and was thrilled 'when his royal highness used Popina as an example of successful business in his speech at a women in business event at Clarence House'. "I was saying to my mother, I come from this little town in Serbia and here I am," she laughs. And one suspects her background has much to do with her appreciation of good natural food. At home she says, "Each autumn, from August to November, you're making tomato sauces, pickling, doing all sorts of stuff; culturally preparing for winter." She talks passionately of the colourful food markets in Serbia where the produce is fresh, organic and straight from local producers.

"When I was developing the recipes I was thinking what would be the perfect palate? I visualised it that the whole of my tongue is happy, so that each corner has a sweet bit, a hot bit, creamy, all sorts of things. That's how I developed the whole range."

Farmers markets were the key to Popovic's business expansion. "The great thing about Portobello," she says, "is I could actually speak to customers. It was quite stressful. You put your heart and soul in this product and then you were speaking naked out there in front of people just waiting for them to say yes or no." Someone who did say yes was Henrietta Green, one of the pioneers of farmers markets in London. She offered her the chance to sell at her markets and at one point Popovic's biscuits could be found at 20 different markets. Now, eight years on, she's just moved into bigger industrial premises, such is the demand for her food. It's a long way from the early days of the market pitch and catering for events such as the Whitechapel Gallery Centenary party.

Whilst the kitchen has moved what hasn't changed is her food ethos. "What I always thought about my biscuits, I always thought they feel like your mum made them or your grandma. There's an aspect of real care. I can't pinpoint why, but I would say we really make them with care and we put in a lot of really good ingredients in." So that means when they want fig paste they buy the figs and paste them themselves. And there's no place for liquid eggs. "They crack them by spinning them," she says. I thought there's no way we're ever going to do that." The result is that in one week alone someone can crack around 7,000 eggs. Anything that can practically be done by hand is, and that includes cutting the biscotti which are only three millimetre thick.

Attention to detail is part of Popina's success. Ingredients, taste and the look all add to the jigsaw. Popovic is a trained artist. She'd hoped to go into fashion and studied art at Goldsmiths College in London. In her final year she 'did some work with food' and feels that food is close to her cultural background. "Food is something that you carry through your life in sense that you celebrate and there's food, you mourn and you pray and there's food." Her close links with food and her artist's background are evident in her products.

"What I always thought about my biscuits, I always thought they feel like your mum made them or your grandma. There's an aspect of real care."

"When I was developing the recipes I was thinking what would be the perfect palate? I visualised it that the whole of my tongue is happy, so that each corner has a sweet bit, a hot bit, creamy, all sorts of things. That's how I developed the whole range." So you find ginger and caramelised chilli. "You have a feeling in your head that it should be like that. Ginger is kind of warm but if I put a little bit of chilli what does it do? You first have this ginger feeling and then the chilli starts burning and it's a really amazing effect."

Personally I found that biting in to the chocolate brownie with white chocolate also had an amazing effect. The moist cake literally dissolves on the tongue and then gives way to little chunks of white chocolate that off set the dark flavour. If there's a problem with Popina's biscuits it's that they don't last long. Each texture, each taste sensation, demands a further testing. And they're a visual treat as well, with the chocolate, figs and sultanas imbedded in the biscuit's surface all vying for attention.

The business has expanded beyond biscuits producing sweet and savoury tarts and cakes. But they still use local, seasonal, organic produce. Their flour still comes from Gloucestershire, butter from Wales and eggs from Kent.

Popina translated from Latin means eatery, but in the context of this business it conjures up something much more exotic. Popovic says, "I constantly keep an eye that the quality is achieved." She believes Popina is 'traditional in a sense but is also very modern'. For her that means keeping the 'old-fashioned values' while pushing the boundaries, such as the pastry she's developed that's more like a bread. For the future, who knows? She jokingly says, "Each year for winter I threaten to do something with Brussels Sprouts." Elevating the maligned sprout to food designer status would certainly have to get her another award to add to those already adorning her kitchen walls. And somehow one feels it can only be a matter of time.

For more information visit www.popina.co.uk

By Michele Nevard