THE Princess Royal flew in to Ross-on-Wye to visit two very different companies.

Princess Anne visited ABT Products Ltd, a leading manufacturer of industrial and agricultural equipment, before going to James Gourmet Coffee Co Ltd.

Her Royal Highness had a tour of the ABT factory at the Ashburton Estate, which produces roll bars, cabs and chassis, and under its Loadmac brand, the Truck Mounted Forklift.

Arriving by helicopter, and accompanied by the Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire, Lady Darnley, the Princess Royal was welcomed by cadets, the High Sherriff, Bill Jackson, members of the ABT management team and other dignitaries.

Tim Morris, operations director, accompanied the Princess throughout her one-hour visit, introducing her to 36 members of the 90-strong workforce.

Mr Morris said: "We considered it an honour to welcome the Princess Royal to ABT and demonstrate our design and production capabilities.

"She was particularly interested in our apprenticeship programme and graduate scheme, which has really started to bear fruit in the last year, training highly skilled welders and design engineers."

ABT was one of the top 50 UK businesses in the London Stock Exchange 'Best 1000 UK SME Companies' report 2015.

The royal then visited James Gourmet Coffee Co Ltd at the Chase Industrial Estate, Alton Road, Ross.

The specialist coffee company was founded in 1999 by Peter James.

He said: "The most important thing (for me) was that the Princess met and engaged with the team.

"We then went into the tasting room and showed the influence in coffee flavour through roasting a single coffee in different ways.

"We then tasted a range of different single estate coffees from different parts of the world with different processing.

"Princess Anne was really engaging and made it a relaxing and fun visit."