Unions at Nestlé have agreed a deal to safeguard the future of the company's defined-benefit pension scheme.

They had accused the company of “betrayal” when it announced plans last year to to close the scheme to new members and, from 2017, stop existing members making further contributions.

Nestlé employs 7,600 people in the UK, including 330 at a milk-processing plant at Dalston near Carlisle.

Members of the GMB and Unite unions voted overwhelmingly to accept a package that allows the scheme to continue, albeit with a higher level of member contributions.

It will still close to new members although employees who are not yet members have been given a final opportunity to join, and existing members will be able to carry on paying in.

The deal is subject to approval by the pension scheme's trustees.

It includes a two-year three per cent pay rise for production workers for 2016 and 2017, designed to lessen the impact of increased pension contributions.

Unite national officer for food and drink Julia Long said: “This pension package, accepted overwhelmingly by the workers, secures the future of the career average pension scheme, which a year ago was under threat.

“A lot of hard work went into safeguarding members’ pension provision at Nestlé at a time when company pension schemes in the UK are under a great deal of pressure.”

And Stuart Fegan, national officer for GMB, said: "It is important that members of GMB and Unite voted overwhelming in favour of the agreement which will safeguard their deferred pay for years to come.”

Nestlé had said that its scheme, which pays a pension calculated as percentage of members’ career-average earnings, was £850m in deficit.

It is obliged to plug the shortfall and it argued that it could not afford to bail out the pension fund indefinitely.

But Dame Fiona Kendrick, chief executive and chairman of Nestlé UK and Ireland, said that pensions were "hugely important" to the company, hence its willingness to compromise.

She added: "That’s why it was imperative that we undertook a comprehensive and wide ranging consultation process on the changes that we proposed in July 2015.

“We have always been serious about listening to our employees and working closely with the trade unions.

“We are pleased union members have accepted the revised company position on pensions, which includes retaining a core defined benefit arrangement.”

The compromise on the pension scheme comes just weeks after Dame Fiona moved to scotch rumours that its Dalston site might close in the wake of the UK's decision to leave the EU.

Speaking at a dinner in Carlisle last month, she said that Nestlé was “100 per cent committed” to Dalston.

She added: "The practical consequences of the country’s decision to leave the EU will become clearer in the months to come, and particularly once the new Prime Minister has had a chance to get her feet under the table.

“For Nestlé, we remain 100 per cent committed to the UK and to all of our people in the UK, including here in Dalston.

“It’s business as usual for us – we are a strong and successful company and I am very confident that we will continue to succeed in what will become Britain’s new place in the world."

Eric Martlew, the former Labour MP for Carlisle, predicted in the run up to the EU referendum that Nestlé and Pirelli would close their Cumbrian sites within five years if the UK voted to leave.

Pirelli has already said that the Brexit vote will have “little or no impact” on its UK tyre factories in Carlisle and Burton-on-Trent.