AN ARMY of giant chocolate robins - handmade by a North Yorkshire company - are winging their way to supermarkets to raise money for charity.

Chocolatiers at The Little Chocolate Shop in Leyburn have been surrounded by over-sized festive birds for the past few weeks after they were set to work creating 19 robins for Sainsbury’s stores in North Yorkshire and the North-East.

They were commissioned by the supermarket giant to stand in their stores until the winner of the raffle is picked on December 23. The money will then go to the stores’ locally chosen charities.

Each robin contains 8kg of chocolate and stands at 3ft high.

Jim Hogg, who runs the family company with his wife Lorraine, said they used a large Easter egg mould to create the main body of the robins.

He said: “We made a large chocolate bicycle for the Tour de France and we once made 25,000 truffles for a single order. But in terms of size, these are the largest chocolate we’ve ever made.

“When they were all stood up it looked like something out of Dr Who. The store manager from Northallerton came to pick up some of them in her car and drove off with two of them looking out the back window.”

The unusual order came from the commercial manager of Sainsbury’s in Northallerton, Jonathan Dulston, after the store successfully raised more £1,000 for charity earlier in the year when they raffled a giant Easter egg created by The Little Chocolate Company.

The idea was then expanded to include all the brands’ stores in the region, including ones at Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Saltburn and York.

The Christmas raffle in Northallerton will raise money for the Pendragon Community Trust, which is trying to create a new sensory centre for adults with disabilities in the town.