Union Snack - one of the UK's few pretzel makers - has been sold to a German snack company for an undisclosed sum.

The County Durham-based company, which makes Penn State Pretzels, has been acquired by Intersnack of Cologne.

Set up in 1996 by John Pike, George Wilkie and Calum Ryder with the aid of £2.2m in venture capital loans, Union now employs 168 people at its Tanfield Lea plant near Stanley.

From making a £660,000 start-up loss, Union achieved a turnover of £9m last year.

Besides Penn State Pretzels it also produces own-label pretzels for Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Tesco and Waitrose.

"Whatever the future brings we will be making pretzels in Stanley for the foreseeable future. There will be no redundancies," said John Pike.