STAFF at a Blackburn firm today revealed the tasty secrets of possibly the best job in the world!

www.aquarterof.co.uk tracks down retro sweeks - products like Blackjacks and Sherbet Fountains which to most people are a childhood memory - then sells them on the internet.

Owner Michael Parker, 40, came up with the idea for the business in a pub, and within months was running it as a full-time business.

Now, after moving the firm, which was set up near London, to Shadsworth business park, Blackburn, in April, he employs nine people and expects to have as many as 30 staff by Christmas.

And as part of their job the staff are regularly expected to put their latest products through taste tests, selecting the best!

Michael, who lives in Chipping, said: "It all came from an idea me and my brother had in a pub. It was very much, let's set up a website and see what happens.

"If it makes a couple of hundred of pounds a month that's more than we would have had otherwise. It just really took off.

"When I started it I had 50 or 60 brands of sweets and I think it's about 560 now and for a lot of them it was a case of doing lots of research to find them. Now people come to us."

When the firm launched in 2003, it was common to receive just one order a day, which Michael would weigh out after working at his own marketing agency.

Now the company's record for orders in one day stands at one-and-a-quarter tons of sweets. The orders are all sent to private individuals, not shops, and this month the firm celebrated its 90,000th order.

The firm, which tracks down small manufacturers and buys in bulk from large firms such as Nestle when it decides to stop producing a range, decided to move to Blackburn as it kept outgrowing its premises, and chose Blackburn as Michael attended university in Lancaster, and knew the area.

He said: "We could have gone anywhere because it's internet-based. But because I know the area a bit and we had friends up here it was a little less daunting.

"There are also a lot of sweet-makers around here and it seemed perfect."