Drink and snack group C&C will make staff redundant in Belfast after reversing a decision to rebuild a bottling plant in the east of the city that was destroyed by fire nearly a year ago.

Some 55 jobs are at risk at the company, whose flotation was abandoned last month after it failed to attract investors. The company said it would build a distribution centre on the site in Castlereagh.

C&C owns brands such as Bulmers cider, Tayto, Ballygowan and Club Orange. The flotation would have valued the company at €1.1 billion, but investors shunned the stock market launch.

The cancellation followed a similar decision by the teleconferencing software firm Spectel to pull its flotation in May, within hours of the deadline.

C&C said it would consult unions and explore the option of redeploying staff in a bid to minimise the numbers affected.

But the managing director of C&C Ireland, Mr Colin Gordon, said: "It is inevitable that redundancies will be unavoidable."

The company reversed the plans to build a new bottling plant because "it would not be appropriate to invest in a new production facility", he said. C&C would continue to supply the Northern Ireland market, he added.

Mr Gordon said the decision not to replace the bottling plant had been "very difficult", but more than 200 staff would remain with the company in the North.

With little sign of a recovery on the international markets, there is little prospect that the C&C flotation plan will be revived any time soon. The group had been hoping to raise €267 million after costs and payments and it had aimed to use this money to pay some of its €800 million debts.

The C&C chairman, Mr Tony O'Brien, stood to gain €8.8 million from the flotation. Its chief executive, Mr Maurice Pratt, was allotted shares with a potential value of €4.4 million and options on stock worth €2.25 million.