The highest-paid director at Baxters Food Group, assumed to be Audrey Baxter, enjoyed a pay hike of more than £100,000, the latest accounts of Scotland's largest food company revealed yesterday.

The pay rise came in a year that saw the 140-year-old, family-owned Scottish company boost its pre-tax profits to £6.7m for 12 months to June 2007, compared with £6.5m the previous year.

Sales at the Fochabers, Moray-based company which now derives a third of its income from overseas markets, rose to £112.8m, from £110m last time.

Meanwhile, Ms Baxter's salary climbed to £432,000, up from £330,000 last time, according to the accounts, which were obtained by The Herald from Companies House.

At the same time, total boardroom pay rose to £1.1m, compared with £782,000 the year before.

The company also proposed that the shareholders receive a final dividend of £1.1m, up from £955,000 last time.

In a previous era, Gordon and Ena Baxter, who resigned in 2006, spent five decades transforming a small family concern into one of Scotland's best-known brands - although Gordon handed the reins to his daughter, Audrey, at the turn of the century.

Sales have more than doubled since Audrey took the helm in 2000.

During the year, the company also acquired CanGro Soups in Canada for an undisclosed sum in a move that doubled the size of its business in the key North American market.

It also opened a pickled onion production plant in Poland.

Baxter's annual report notes: "It is highly likely we shall acquire again overseas."