Britvic counts cost of recall

The J20 and Tango drinks firm confirmed the recall cost it around 2 per cent in full year sales growth across the group after withdrawing all bottles of the children’s drink and spin-off Fruit Shoot Hydro in July due to safety concerns with faulty caps.

Britvic has already warned the episode will wipe between £15m and £25m from profits over this financial year and next.

But Britvic said talks over a £1.4bn merger with Irn-Bru maker AG Barr were ongoing as a Takeover Panel deadline looms for the two groups to finalise a deal by the end of this month.

The proposed merger would create one of the leading soft drinks companies in Europe, with other brands including Barr’s Tizer and Rubicon fruit juice.

Britvic said revenue fell 0.8 per cent over the year to September 30 to £1.26bn, “primarily” due to the Fruit Shoot recall.

It took six weeks to resume production with a new type of cap, while it will take up to January to return to previous levels of demand, according to Britvic.

The blow came on top of poor trading due to bad early summer weather and low consumer spending, which it said earlier this year would leave profits at the bottom end of City expectations before the recall hit.

UK fourth quarter sales slumped by 4.3 per cent.