Partner Article

Fruit Shoot recall damages Britvic profits

Beverages firm Britvic, which makes the childrens drink Fruit Shoot, announced a 20% dip in profits for the year after a product recall this summer.

Group revenues dropped by 0.8% and profits before tax suffered a fall from £105.1m in 2011 to £84.4m in the last 52 weeks.

It was reported in July that a six-year-old boy’s mother complained to the company after her son choked on a Fruit Shoot cap.

The firm was forced to recall the product as a result, and has since felt the financial impact of the decision.

Chief Executive, Paul Moody, said: “The Fruit Shoot product recall was regrettable, but necessary in order to protect the safety of our consumers.

“The business responded quickly and efficiently to manage the situation and refocused our priorities as required over the balance of the year.”

Britvic, who makes Pepsi-Cola, J20 and Robinsons, said it would look thoroughly at cost disciplines and cash generation to help reduce the company’s net debt.

The business maintained its dividend at 17.7 pence per share, while earnings per share fell by 6.5 pence.

Britvic said the British part of the business took the market share led by fizzy drinks and Pepsi, while the company’s Robinsons brand re-established its high market share and good performance of two years ago.

Mr Moody added: “Britvic has delivered some notable successes in the last twelve months. Our GB carbonates brands, and Pepsi in particular, significantly outperformed the market in this Olympic year,

“Robinsons squash returned to its two year historic high share of the market, our syrups brands in France increased volume and value share, and the expansion of our US franchise business developed in line with our stated plan.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .