A CHILLED foods manufacturer is to export its ready-meals to Scandinavia after being bought by a conglomerate of Danish pig farmers.

Pro-Pak Foods, which employs 300 staff in Malton, North Yorkshire, has been sold to the TiCan food group.

TiCan was so impressed by the company's range of 150 chilled meals that it plans to import them.

Mark Jenkins, Pro-Pak marketing manager, said: "They want us to give them our whole range.

"The Scandinavian retail market is a bit behind ours, and TiCan expect ready-meals to take off in a big way.

"It is early days to be talking about more jobs, but I would be shocked if we didn't take advantage of this opportunity to grow our business."

The deal, for an undisclosed sum, was originally set up as a cost-saving measure to help both sides compete in the UK cooked meat market.

The Danes will send pigs to a plant in Poland for processing. The products will then be shipped to Pro-Pak for slicing and packaging.

"This secures the future growth of our cooked meats business," said Mr Jenkins.

"There is a huge amount of price deflation throughout the food industry. We were looking to Eastern Europe and TiCan has already invested in Poland, where costs are a lot lower."

Pro-Pak employs 300 workers at its plant on York Industrial Park and expects to improve on last year's turnover of £25m.

TiCan is Denmark's second largest co-operative of pig farmers and has a turnover of £200m a year.

It employs 1,000 workers at its Jutland plant.

The takeover will not mean any management changes. David Longbottom, who co-founded the company in 1993, will continue as managing director.