YOU'VE heard of the dirty dozen, now meet East Lancashire's very own dairy dozen -- and they're coming to a supermarket near you!

The 12 loveable faces make up the Little Town Taste Team and all are the grandchildren of Eileen and Matthew Forshaw, whose Little Town Dairy has managed to scoop new contracts with national chains.

And when they were asked to create one-off in-store adverts for the range of yoghurts they are now stocking for stores like Sainsburys and Safeway, they knew exactly who to turn to.

The 12 grandchildren are now having the shock of their lives seeing their little mugs next to the yoghurts at stores, including the Safeway supermarket in Inglewhite Road, Longridge, which is just a few hundred yards away from the Little Town Dairy in Thornley.

Eileen said: "We are a family business in the true sense. Three of our four children work either in for the business or in our dairy and we wanted to get that point across with the advertising.

"We've always said the grandchildren were our taste team and now they really are. We kitted them out in little t-shirts saying 'Little Town Dairy' on them and got pictures taken for posters and for adverts on the front of the shelves."

The children, aged between six and 12, are now getting used to being spotted, locally at least.

Eileen added: "They've had a shock seeing themselves in the supermarket and people have spotted them, including their teachers."

Until the mid 1980s, Litte Town Dairy just produced milk, but the introduction of milk quotas left the farm producing much more milk than it was allowed to sell.

Initially, the farm arranged a couple of milk contracts with hospitals then attempted expanding into yoghurts.

Daughter-in-law Janet Forshaw, who also works in the business, said: "Eileen went away on an intensive course on yoghurt making and then started experimenting on the Aga at home. It has just snowballed from there."

The farm now produces 20,000 litres of different yoghurts a week, across 20 lines. And their annual open day, held in August with the support of Clitheroe-based regeneration agency Lancashire Rural Futures, also attracts thousands of people.

All the milk used comes from their own dairy, which has been approved by the RSPCA.

Eileen said: "We try to pick carefully who we deal with and pick a line which is suitable for them. We are able to say we produce everything here, and can trace the milk back to source.

"In an age where people take a lot more interest in the food they eat, that is really important to shoppers."