A BLACKBURN cake company's slice of the action in the growing film and TV promotions market has hit £20 million.

The news comes as Inter Link Foods -- the UK's second largest cake manufacturer -- has secured the rights to provide the official cake merchandise for the latest Batman film, Batman Begins, due out in June this year.

It has already made the official cakes for the recently released big screen remake of children's TV classic the Magic Roundabout.

And Inter Link has also secured the merchandise rights to characters created by bestselling children's author Jacqueline Wilson.

The company is still keen to grow this side of its business, which became possible when it acquired the Salisbury-based Creative Cake Company in March 2001 for £6 million.

Creative Cake Company negotiates the UK licence agreements on behalf of Inter Link with massive corporations like Disney, giving it the merchandise rights to a who's who of the TV cartoon world with characters including Thomas the Tank Engine, Bagpuss and Winnie the Pooh.

Interlink now has at least a 20 per cent slice of the novelty cakes market -- a sector worth around £100 million a year.

Inter Link's executive chairman Alwin Thompson, said: "This area continues to grow very fast for us and the children love them because they feature their favourite TV and cartoon characters.

"It is a sector that has gone from being worth nothing to around £100 million in the last seven or eight years."

Meanwhile, Mr Thompson said the key word was still growth and that Inter Link --named Company of the Year in the 2003 Evening Telegraph Business Awards -- remained acquisition hungry.

He said the company would be looking to expand the number of employees at its Shadsworth base in the near future as it continues its quest to be the number one cake firm in the UK.