ANGRY bosses at a Pendle dairy which was forced to close by an EU ruling have vowed to continue their battle through the courts.

Bowland Dairy, Barrowford, shut yesterday with the loss of 23 jobs and £150,000 of unsaleable cheese left in its stores.

The Pasture Lane factory was told by the EU that its curds contained antibiotic traces which could not be sold on the Continent, forcing the firm into bankruptcy.

The case could have massive repercussions for the cheese industry throughout Europe as UK inspectors had always given Bowland's products the go-ahead.

John Wright, a director of the company which had invested £1.1 million in equipment since it opened eight years ago, said: "The commission has acted unilaterally and we have been a whipping boy in the argument between it and the British Food Standards Agency.

"The commission has never tested one kilo of the products we have made so who are they to tell us that our products are not fit for purpose?

"They have picked the wrong people to pick on - the factory is lost but we will fight to be proved right."

Tony Price, Bowland's financial manager, said all the employees had been kept informed about the state of the business since the inspection, but that the ruling had still come as "a hell of a shock."

He said: "It was a happy and skilled workforce and it just seems desperately wrong that a town like Barrowford should lose one of its biggest manufacturing businesses.

"There are some families where two or three members worked here and they have all lost their jobs. It really is a tragedy."

One worker, 39-year-old Stuart Coates, whose cousin Andrew also worked at the firm and whose father Peter was a director, said: "There's nothing we can do.

"We will all just have to go out on Monday and get ourselves new jobs."