Soft-drink sales fizz in on-trade
Soft drinks put in a resilient performance last year in the on-trade, outgrowing ale, lager and stout with value up 1% to £2.8bn, according to the annual Britvic Soft Drinks Report.
Britvic also announced several new initiatives for 2011 at the report launch, including a raft of new activity for its J20 brand, which saw a whopping 13% decline in volume last year.
There will also be the launch of Lipton Ice Tea into restaurants, pubs and bars to create a new "cold hot drinks" category.
The company put the strong category performance of soft drinks down to the strength of food and family-oriented pubs.
However, value had grown over volume, which declined 3%, as retailers pushed through some price rises to consumers in a bid to compensate for loss of margin in other categories.
Cola was the top-performing category, up 3% by volume and 9% by value to £987m, driven by draught, as consumers sought value for money.
Juice drinks posted a less impressive performance, down 13% in volume and 9% in value to £210m, reflected in the decline of J20, again a result of drinkers looking for better-value alternatives.
Britvic on-trade business unit director Paul Linthwaite said it was planning a big push on J20 with 8,000 PoS kits being distributed and a consumer prize of £20,000 for making a new flavour.
The launch of Lipton Ice Tea, which has already proved successful in the off-trade, is set for this summer and listings have already been confirmed with an
un-named "casual-dining group". It comes in glass bottles, served over ice in continental "bowl-style" branded glassware.
In addition Linthwaite revealed that the company was also bringing back its 125ml mixer bottles, which it scrapped last spring, to sell alongside the 160ml size.
