Britvic Ireland’s 15% sales growth ‘not indicative of market turnaround’

SOFT drinks group Britvic has reported a strong third- quarter performance for its Irish operations, but has warned that it doesn’t necessarily illustrate improved market conditions here.

Britvic Ireland – which largely comprises the old soft drinks division of C&C Group, which the British company acquired three years ago – recorded like- for-like sales volume growth of 15% over the three months to the end of July.

While this was a significant outperforming of the wider market, which only grew combined sales volumes by 5.8% in comparison, in the year to date Britvic Ireland’s sales volumes are down by 1.5% on a year-on-year basis.