Kitchen equipment group Aga today said increasing international demand for its legendary cookers helped it serve up another record performance.

The Birmingham-based company said its products now had an "established presence" outside the UK, with a specially adapted version of its Rangemaster oven doing particularly well in the United States.

This helped pre-tax profits lift 9.7 per cent to £30.6 million in the year to December 31, as the lacklustre markets of the previous two years started to improve.

Aga said its US version of the Rangemaster Elan sold well in the growing US cooker market, while demand was also strong for Aga's conventional cooking range.

The Aga cooker oven is well-known in the UK and sales abroad have been increasing in recent years.