Irish Britvic sales down by 8.5%

Revenue at Britvic Ireland declined by 8.5 per cent in the fourth quarter to £36.7 million (€45 million) as the market remained “very challenging”.

Revenue at its Irish unit has fallen by 9.6 per cent this year to £138.7 million (€170.8 million) but the drinks group said it continued to hold its market share despite the average shopping trip spend in Ireland falling to its lowest level since 2005.

"Conditions in Ireland remain challenging as a consequence of the macroeconomic environment but we are successfully maintaining market share," Britvic chief executive Paul Moody said.

Britvic said the performance of the third-party brands it distributes was the material cause of the decline.

"For our owned brands, average realised price was up by 3.9 per cent but volumes were down 4.6 per cent in the quarter," the group said in a trading update.

Overall, Britvic Group revenue has fallen by 0.8 per cent to some £1.26 billion in the year to September 30th.

The decline was attributed to the recall of some of its Fruit Shoot brand in Britain earlier this year, which Britvic said impacted group revenue growth by approximately 2 per cent.

However, the group said strong pricing growth in France of 10.9 per cent, resulted in revenue growth of 8 per cent in the country.

"The Board is confident of delivering its expectations for the full year," Mr Moody said.

Group revenue declined by 1.9 per cent in the three months to the end of September on a constant exchange rate and by 4.9 per cent on an actual exchange rate basis.

British revenues fell by 4.3 per cent in the quarter and 1.7 per cent for the year, largely dragged down by the Fruit Shoot recall.

Britvic said Pepsi's share of the take-home cola market grew substantially in both volume and value and its carbonates brand revenue grew by 2.1 per cent in the group's fourth quarter.

"Our carbonates brands in Great Britain have performed particularly well against the backdrop of the largest UK sporting event in a generation (the Olympics), demonstrating once again the quality of our consumer promotional programmes and the strength of our in-market execution," Mr Moody said.