The global credit crunch has taken its toll on the humble fish finger with the financial collapse of a factory in Newcastle-upon-Tyne that made frozen products under the Findus brand.

Administrators have been called in to take charge of Newcastle Productions, which has an exclusive license to make Findus food in the UK, after the company fell into cashflow troubles.

The factory at Longbenton makes Findus the Fisherman fish pies, tuna pasta bakes and fish fingers as well as other frozen products, including Crispy Pancakes and traditional English meals, such as cottage pie and toad in the hole.

The troubles at the Findus plant, which employs 420 people, will be a further blow to jobs in the North East, which is already under the cosh after the announcement of heavy redundancies at Nissan.

The Findus plant has been shut since Tuesday, when a fire of unknown origin broke out in a Crispy Pancake unit and a large section of the factory was destroyed.

No one was injured in the blaze, which happened at night, but the factory is expected to be out of action for several weeks.

Zolfo Cooper, which has been appointed administrator to Newcastle Productions, is seeking a buyer for the factory as a going concern.

“We remain confident that there will be interest from potential buyers to secure the future of this business and will need the support of all parties to achieve this," Nick Cropper, a joint administrator and partner at Zolfo Cooper, said.

The owner of the Findus brand is Lion Capital, which licences the rights to make Findus products throughout Europe.

The Newcastle factory is owned by Geir Frantzen, a former Findus senior manager, who bought the business from its previous owner, EQT, the Swedish private equity firm, in 2005.

Since then, the Newcastle business has suffered losses despite increasing sales.

The company was hopeful of raising its game after securing contracts to export frozen foods to Scandinavia.

However, the company has been under a cashflow squeeze and was affected by the financial troubles in Iceland when one of its backers, Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank, collapsed.

The Findus brand was created in Sweden in 1945 and was subsequently acquired by Nestlé, but the Swiss company quit the frozen-products market eight years ago.

Frozen food has suffered in recent years from rising costs and the fashion for chilled meals.

Unilever, which for decades controlled Bird's Eye, Findus's main rival, also quit the frozen food market in the UK, selling the brand to Permira, the private equity firm.

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