Irn Bru maker AG Barr has criticised the government's "punitive" sugar tax as it announced a drop in sales and the axing around 55 Scottish jobs.
The Lanarkshire-based company which also makes Tizer and Snapple, talked of a “significant weight of negative media coverage” on sugary soft drinks while it took action to reformulate drinks in advance of the Government’s new levy coming into force.
The drinks firm also forecast that the Brexit vote would cost the group between £3m and £4m in 2017 as the falling value of the pound had increased its import costs.
The contentious tax, proposed by former Chancellor George Osborne last March to combat child obesity, “will be very complex, expensive and difficult to implement”, said the business that launched sugar-free Irn-Bru and Rubicon drinks earlier this summer.
The job losses come as part of the Cumbernauld soft drink maker's restructuring plans which aims to save around £3m each year. It estimated the one-off cost of the reorganisation at about £4m.
The axing of 10 percent of its workforce - around 90 job losses across Britain - will be felt it AG Barr's commercial, central office and supply chain departments. In March, the firm annnouncing a rise in annual pre-tax profits of seven percent said the financial impact of the proposed sugar tax will be minimised by its brand strength, product reformulation, and innovation.
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AG Barr says it is "on track" to have two-thirds of its products either be no or low sugar by the time the levy is introduced in April 2018 to avoid the tax.
The firm has revealed revenue slid from £130.3m to £125.6m in the first half of the year to the end of July. The firm still kept up with profits with a slight rise from £16.9m to £17m.
But the firm was not letting any resentment with the sugar tax go.
It said: "We believe this proposed tax is a punitive and unnecessary distortion to competition in the UK market which will be very complex, expensive and difficult to implement.
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"Our aggressive reformulation and sugar reduction actions, along with our innovation and marketing, will drive sustained and significant improvements in the balance and choice offered across our portfolio.
"We believe our positive actions and sugar reduction progress, along with those of many of our competitors within the soft drinks industry, make the implementation of a soft drinks only sugar tax an unnecessary measure in the context of Government health policy objectives."
Chief executive Roger White said it was a “solid” performance despite a decline in demand and poor weather in the early summer months.
AG Barr said the organisational changes was likely to affect 10% of its staff.
"Subject to consultation, we expect that the majority of the changes will be implemented before the end of the current financial year," said a spokesman.
"In line with general market trends, lower and no sugar products have performed better as consumers respond to the significant weight of negative media coverage pointed towards added sugar products particularly in the last six months."
An estimated 40 percent of the group's drinks portfolio has a low sugar content.
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The proposed tax was to be levied in two bands.
A higher band for the most sugary drinks with more than 8g per 100 millilitres - adding 8p to the price of a can.
A lower band for drinks above 5g per 100 millilitres would add about 6p to a can or bottle Pure fruit juices and milk-based drinks were to be exempt.
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