THE meat supplier to top Scottish chefs such as Nick Nairn, Tom Kitchin and Martin Wishart has seen its profits more than double.

Turnover at Campbells Prime Meat nudged up from £50.17 million to £50.75m in 2012, according to accounts filed at Companies House.

However, pre-tax profits soared almost 118% from £380,175 to £827,901 in a year in which managing director Christopher Campbell described the company as moving from "recovery mode to really flying".

It is almost four years since the firm's premises in Broxburn, West Lothian, were destroyed by fire, with Mr Campbell attributing part of the profit growth to the company having properly settled in to its new site near Linlithgow.

He said: "Last year reflects the fact we have fully recovered from the fire. In 2012 we were firing on all cylinders and the numbers were very positive."

A strong net cash inflow, up from £405,241 to £1.5m, helped Campbells pay down its debt, with bank loans reduced by £300,000 and £214,941 knocked off loans due to directors.

Overall net debt was cut from £1.7m to £619,085.

Average employee numbers went from 311 to 301, with staff costs going from £6.7m to £7.05m.

Directors' remuneration increased from £406,618 to £469,363, with the highest paid seeing their emoluments rise from £127,133 to £132,701.

Mr Campbell said the firm had seen an uptick in sales during 2013 due to the horsemeat scandal, with many customers switching from frozen meats to fresh produce. However, he warned the rising price of beef was impacting margins meaning the outlook for the full year was mixed.

He said: "A lot of people want to use just UK beef and there is a shortage of supply so unfortunately prices are going up quite rapidly.

"That is a challenge for us as hotels and restaurants don't want to pay more as they want to offer their own customers an excellent deal."

Campbells supplies fresh meat, game, deli products and fish to schools, universities, the NHS in Scotland, catering companies, hotels, restaurants and pub groups.

It also makes haggis and black pudding under the Nick Nairn brand for supply into supermarkets and is also a fresh fish supplier to Aldi.

Mr Campbell, who trained as an accountant with KPMG before joining the family business, said a recently installed software platform has improved the company's website and sales are running ahead of where they were last year, with Scotch beef proving particularly popular across the UK.

The company can be traced to Thomas Campbell opening a butcher's in Edinburgh in 1910. The modern business was started in 1972 by his grandson Edward, Christopher 's father.