A CAKE company heralded as one of the North West's biggest business success stories was today celebrating 10-years of unsurpassed achievement.

And Inter Link Foods boss Alwin Thompson provided the cherry on top - by announcing a new £2.6million investment at the firm's Blackburn bakery.

Inter Link Foods was created in 1994 with the purchase of Crossfield Foods in Shadsworth - still best remembered as Kenyons Bakery. It was losing £350,000 a year and the remaining 35 workers were serving their redundancy notices.

Today, the company has its sights firmly set on becoming Britain's second-biggest cake-maker and expects to break the £100 million sales barrier within the next two years.

At 57, an age when many successful company bosses would be planning their retirement, Mr Thompson is eagerly looking forward to the next decade.

As the chief executive unveiled the company's biggest-ever investment at its bakery, he promised to keep the headquarters in the town where the Inter Link story started.

"Blackburn is where it all began and we have had tremendous support from our employees," he said. "The strength of any business lies in its people and I couldn't have asked for any more from my staff in Blackburn."

The launch of the new £2.6 million production line - one of the biggest and fastest in Europe - was the start of a day of celebrations for more than 100 VIP guests today.

Inter Link Foods - the reigning Lancashire Evening Telegraph Business of the Year - makes 'own brand' cakes and pastry products which are sold by all the major supermarket groups such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys.

It also owns the Soreen malt loaf brand and has a licence with the Disney Corporation to produce cakes featuring popular Disney characters such as Snow White and Winnie the Pooh.

The company is now the third-largest cake maker in Britain, with sales of £70 million last year from its eight bakeries which together employ almost 1,000 people.

Inter Link's success was hailed today by Mike Damms, chief executive of the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce. "This must be one of the biggest business success stories over the past decade, not just in Blackburn but the entire North West," he said.

"We have seen a steady decline in the number of large companies, but Inter Link has gone against that trend to create a thousand jobs which is a terrific achievement.

"Alwin Thompson follows a proud heritage of entrepreneurs who have created wealth and opportunities for East Lancashire."