THE company which runs the biggest Indian food factory in the world has its eyes on a new market -- India.

The Patak's factory in Leigh has been operating for the last year and exports food, sauces and snacks to more than 40 countries worldwide.

The factory, which covers an area equal to the size of six football pitches, employs 248 staff at the moment and there is a possibility that there could be 50 new jobs in the next 18 months.

And the board is planning further expansion -- particularly through a joint venture with an American company which will see Patak's name spread through North America.

Managing Director David Page, who has seen the total workforce rise from 85 to 525 in the 10 years he has been with the company, revealed the "coals to Newcastle" ambition after the opening ceremony.

"Eventually we would like to sell Patak's branded products in India," he told me.

He said the products would either be made in Britain or in India "in the next two to three years."

These ambitions are a far cry from the time when Kirit's late father, Laxmishanker Pathak, arrived in London from Kenya in the early 1950s with his wife and six children -- and £5 in his pocket.

He found it difficult to find a job so he started selling samosas from his Kentish Town home in 1956. The business grew and grew and moved to a site in Abram, Wigan in 1978.

An 18,000 sq ft distribution warehouse was opened in Haydock in 1990 and there have been subsequent acquisitions of a frozen food factory in Dundee and an Indian bread factory in Cumbernauld.

Kirit joined his father's expanding company in 1970 and he and his wife Meena have spearheaded the company's rise since then.

Patak's products are now used by an estimated 90 per cent of Indian restaurants in the UK.

The Leigh factory stands on a brown field site which was part of the old Parsonage colliery.

Annual sales of Indian sauces, snacks, chutneys, pickles, pappadums and breads now top £50 million a year.

There are more than 290 different products.