Britvic posts 2.5% on-trade decline

Britvic, the soft drinks maker and distributor, has this morning reported a 2.5% decline in licensed on-trade volumes for the year to July.

It experienced a volume decline of 1.6% for the three months to the end of July 2009, although the month of July showed an increase of 0.4% by volume. Off-sales were down by 0.9%.

Announcing a trading update for the year to 15 October it said overall group volumes had increased by 3.9% and revenue for the 52-week period had increased by 5.6% to £978.8m.

The UK saw a 12-month revenue growth of 11% for carbonated drinks and 5.7% for still. Internationally, revenue increased by 18.5%.

However, Ireland continued to be a problem area for Britvic and suffered a 10.7% decline in volume and a 16.9% fall in revenue.

The company said it was still on-track to deliver its upgraded expectations for the year.

Paul Moody, Britvic's chief executive, said: "Strong revenue growth achieved by selling more branded soft drinks at higher prices characterises our performance in the latest quarter and the full year. Compelling brand-equity programmes and strong innovation, supported by excellent execution at the point of sale, have been instrumental in our success. A re-engineered business in Ireland is, we believe, well placed to exploit market growth as it returns.

"The combination of top-line growth and close management of costs mean that we will meet our recently-increased expectations for 2009.

"Additionally, despite the poor visibility of future market performance, we remain fully confident at this early stage that we have the momentum, brands and in-market execution to deliver another strong set of results for the year ahead."

Fourth quarter volumes were up 1.6% for the group and revenue had increased by 4.2% year-on-year.