Britvic Ireland returns to growth

The Irish operations of UK-owned soft drinks producer, Britvic has seen a return to annual growth, with revenue up 1.3%, in constant exchange rate terms, and sales volumes ahead by 2.6%.

As part of its annual results, for the 12 months to the end of September, Britvic reported revenues of £120.4 million (€172m) for its Irish operations, with chief executive Simon Litherland saying the business in Ireland is now on an upward curve following a number of difficult years.

“In Ireland, we saw the business return to revenue growth, although the particularly poor summer weather impacted our performance in the final quarter, after three successive quarters of growth.

“The market remained subdued and deflationary; however, we gained market share, testament to the strength of our brands in Ireland.

"MiWadi, Ballygowan, Fruit Shoot and Club all gained share, and the business is now well-positioned to deliver growth in the coming years,” he said.

Also in Ireland, Britvic has renewed its existing bottling contract with PepsiCo, on an all-island basis, for the Pepsi, 7-Up and Mountain Dew brands.

While Ireland remains a tough market, management said that the company is outperforming the wider market, gaining both volume and market share.

Britvic’s group revenues, for the year, were marginally down by 0.6% to £1.3bn, but overall pre-tax profit rose by just under 11% to £147m.

Best performance was seen in France, where revenues grew by 4.2%, but management said conditions remained challenging in all of its markets.