ALWYN Thompson is passionate about cakes and pastries. As chief executive of Blackburn-based Inter Link Foods, he bakes hundreds of millions of them every year.

But outside of the baking industry, few will have heard of the company which is now in the top three of the UK's cake-makers.

Virtually everyone, though, will have tasted its product range that embraces sponge cakes, Christmas cakes, cup cakes, Viennese whirls, fruit pies, low-fat cakes, celebration cakes and bakewell tarts.

Inter Link supplies most of Britain's leading supermarket chains, providing the likes of Asda, Tesco, Safeway, Somerfield and Aldi with own-label products.

Alwyn expects turnover this year to be more than £50million - a target he would have thought impossible when he first arrived in Blackburn in 1994.

"Crossfield Foods had been put up for sale by the Yorkshire Food Group," he recalled. "It was losing around £350,000 on an annual turnover of £1.4 million. The staff had already been given their redundancy notices and we were given 28 days to complete the deal or the bakery would close."

The Blackburn bakery - better known in East Lancashire as Kenyons - had been in financial trouble for years.

Alwyn introduced a series of major changes to take the company out of "intensive care". The savoury pies, produced in low quantities with relatively high labour costs, were replaced with higher volume lines, including sponge sandwiches, fruit pies and tray baked cakes.

"We had to rationalise the product range," he explained. "We had to deliver what we were good at and what the market needed. We also invested in the right plant and machinery and we slowly expanded our customer base. That was the first business we turned round from being in intensive care to good health."

By 1995, Inter Link had bought its first business, the Lisa Bakery in Oldham, which produced swiss rolls and sponges. Chocolate-coated mini-rolls were added to the range and it now makes more than 500,000 of them every day.

In 1998, the company was floated on the Stock Exchange, a decision Alwyn described as the best the board had ever made. It allowed the company to raise the finance needed to go on the acquisition trail and it has since bought five other bakeries throughout the UK.

The company also opened a new 32,000sq ft bakery at Shadsworth in Blackburn which is now the head office of the company.

One of its purchases was the Creative Cake Company in Salisbury which is a market leader in celebration cakes featuring TV and film characters such as Barbie, Bob the Builder, Harry Potter, the Tweenies and Spiderman.

Another was Cakes for the Connoisseur which supplies individually-wrapped cakes to more than 8,000 outlets throughout the UK which include airports, railway stations and filling stations.

Inter Link started trading on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) at £1.10 a share, and the price has since more than trebled. Around 10 per cent of the company's 750-strong work-force are shareholders in the business. "People contribute to a share save scheme on a monthly basis," he said. "Some of those who joined in 1998 have already taken advantage of the scheme and it is great to see them sharing in the success of the business."

As befits a man who started his working life as a salesman for Cadbury's, he will talk with confidence and passion about his products and his company. The only time he struggled for words during our lengthy chat was when he spoke about his management style and his staff.

"It might sound a little corny, but I want people to be happy here," he said. "When I started in business, there were two things I wanted: to be successful and to be happy. I want the same for the work-force here.

"I treat everyone with respect - I know that the firm has grown with the work done by the staff and we have a really good work-force."

As an avid Manchester United season ticket holder, though, his patience is increasingly being tested by the Rovers fanatics on the staff!

Another factor which Alwyn believes has supported Inter Link's growth is the company's investment in product development and innovation. "Most people think of cakes as a very staid business, but we are very innovative," he explained. "Working with Asda, we produce cakes that can have a photograph printed onto the surface - this is a world first.

"Our product development team at Blackburn has also produced a fruit cake that is 97 per cent fat free."

In full flow, Alwyn betrays his sales background which took him from Cadbury's to cigarette giant Gallaghers and then on to ADT Security Systems where he was sales and marketing director.

In 1986, he turned his back on a secure and well-paid lifestyle to start his first business, a bakery in Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire.

Three years later, he sold out to Northumbrian Fine Foods and took a seat on the board as marketing director.

After five years, the lure of running his own show led him to Blackburn and the rest, as they say, is history.