ENGINEERING company Aqua Cooling Solutions is celebrating after achieving a £2m annual turnover within the first three years of trading.

Aqua, which designs and supplies industrial cooling applications, started trading in 2001 with just three members of staff.

Today it has a national field sales team and employ eight members of staff at offices on the Tower Lane Industrial Estate in Eastleigh.

In the 2003/2004 financial year turnover from unit sales alone was £2m, with additional income coming from service, hire and maintenance contracts.

Aqua's systems are utilised by food, packaging, chemical, pharmaceutical, plastics, motor and defence companies around the world.

Its coolers and chillers are used in the production of a huge number of everyday objects, from milk and detergent bottles to cooling large tanks of shellfish and ready meals before they are packaged and distributed to the supermarkets.

In the last three years Aqua has worked on projects in countries as far afield as Russia, Egypt and Canada.

The firm has also supplied equipment to the manufacturing plants of Nissan and Toyota, as well as Aston Martin.

Aqua plans to expand further over the coming months with a new range of temperature controllers due to be launched under the Aqua Temp brand name this autumn.

Director Simon Davis said: "We have spent the last three years focused on establishing our reputation and gaining credibility within the industry."