Ireland remains ‘challenging market’ for Britvic as sales volumes fall 20%

IRELAND remains a challenging market for soft drinks producer Britvic, the company has revealed in a trading update for the third quarter of its financial year.

Although group-wide, Britvic revenues grew 6% year-on-year to £249 million (€290.3m) for the three months to the end of June, sales volumes for its Irish operations, for the same period, were down by just over 20%. When measured in euros, revenues fell by 24.3%, year-on-year.

In May, when Britvic issued its first-half results, chief executive Paul Moody said management was satisfied with its Irish division, which includes brands such as Ballygowan, Cidona and Mi-Wadi and came about by the acquisition of C&C’s soft drinks division for €250m in 2007.

Yesterday, he said that no improvement in the hardships facing the Irish market is in sight. “Following an encouraging performance in April, the trading environment in May and June has been particularly challenging,” the group said of its Irish division yesterday.

It added that the grocery soft drinks market here fell by more than 8% in the three months to mid-June.

“The convenience and licensed on-premise markets continue to be severely impacted by the recession and the performance of these channels has contributed to Britvic Ireland’s volume decline of over 20% in the period to the end of June.”

Mr Moody added. “Whilst Ireland continues to be a very challenging environment… our UK and international business, in contrast, continues to perform very strongly. As a result, the board now anticipates the full-year outcome is likely to be ahead of the peak of current market expectations.”