Pub sales dip for Britvic

Britvic, the soft drinks maker and distributor, has reported a 1.9% drop in on-trade volumes for the year to 27 September 2009.

Although it experienced a 0.6% positive fillip in its most recent quarter the group, which produces Pepsi, 7Up and J2O, warned about the prospects of the on-trade business and added: "We remain cautious on the prospects for a fuller and sustained recovery in the channel."

Revealing its preliminary results this morning Britvic said that ebitda had increased by 5.3% to £150.5m, up from £142.9m, off the back of improved revenue within its UK and international markets of £978.8m.

The off-trade also suffered for the business, with a 0.9% decline in volumes.

However Britvic said that in the UK its brands continued to outperform the market — with an increase in still volumes of 3.6% and carbonates up by 7.9%.

Paul Moody, Britvic's chief executive, said: "Britvic's very strong performance has delivered double-digit operating profit and earnings growth. The UK and international business has now achieved eight consecutive quarters of revenue growth since 2006.

"Over the last year our brands have grown market share across all key categories and our portfolio has been strengthened by successful innovation.

"We are successfully re-engineering our business in Ireland to take advantage of eventual market recovery, whilst realising expected synergies.

"Recent conditions in the UK soft drink market have shown some signs of improvement, although visibility in both UK and Ireland beyond the short term remains limited and we take a cautious view of consumer spending."

Trade in Ireland continued to suffer for Britvic and it posted a 10.7% decline in volumes for the country.

It reduced debt by 5.7% to £366.4m and also announced it reached an agreement with investors in the US private-placement market for $250m (£149m) in order to "rebalance the group's debt structure."