SOFT drinks company Britvic has reported a 19.7% plunge in annual profit after the recall of its Fruit Shoot children's drink but said production of the beverage should return to previous levels in the new year, when it is due to complete its merger with Irn-Bru maker AG Barr.
Britvic saw its underlying pre-tax profit for the 12 months to the end of September fall from £105.1 million to £84.4m.
Chief executive Paul Moody said: "The progress that we made was more than offset by the impact of the Fruit Shoot product recall.
"Additionally, the negative macro-economic trends, leading to weak consumer confidence and the cold, wet summer endured across most of our markets, weighed heavily on the soft drinks market."
Britvic, the maker of Tango and Robinsons drinks, this month agreed a £1.4 billion merger with Cumbernauld-based AG Barr.
The deal will see the combined company's legal headquarters located in Scotland but its operational base will be Britvic's home at Hemel Hempstead.
During the year, Britvic paid out £3.1m in advisory fees relating to the AG Barr merger as well as a potential purchase which did not go ahead.
Britvic, which also makes and sells PepsiCo's brands in Britain and Ireland, saw a strong performance in its British carbonated drinks business although this was offset by the recall of Fruit Shoot following a fault with its cap.
The recall cost £16.9m in the year to the end of September and will cost another £8m in the current year.
But Britvic said that it expected production to return to previous levels by January.
The Fruit Shoot problems sent Britvic's revenue down 0.8% to £1.3bn at constant exchange rates.
Britvic's all-share deal with Barr, which is subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, will create one of Europe's biggest soft drinks companies, named Barr Britvic Soft Drinks.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article