FDBusiness.com

Britvic, UK soft drink group with a growing international presence, has reported strong results for the 53 weeks ended 2 October 2016 with revenue rising by 10.1% to £1.431 billion, compared to the prior year, and pre-exceptional EBITA up 8.4% to £186.1 million. On a like-for-like basis, revenue increased by 0.4% to £1.322 billion and pre-exceptional EBITA by 3.8% to £178.8 million

Britvic sold over 2.3 billion litres of soft drinks during the period – an increase of 12.3% on the previous year – with Average Realised Price (ARP) of 59.2p, declining by 3.3%.

Britvic reported an outstanding year for its Great Britain Carbonates business, with like-for-like revenue growth of 5.3%, but its Stills business faced major challenges but showed improvement in the second half. Britvic also enjoyed an excellent first year in Brazil with its Fruit Shoot brand now launched in Sao Paulo and continued to make progress in the USA, where Fruit Shoot is available in multi-pack.

Last year, Britvic announced a transformational three-year investment programme to deliver increased supply chain flexibility and efficiency with a minimum 15% EBITDA return. Britvic expects that the net capital investment in the programme will be around £240 million. The first year of investment into the supply chain in Great Britain is on track and Britvic has identified opportunities in Ireland and France. In 2016, Britvic commissioned its first new large PET line and on site warehousing in Leeds. It also made significant progress on the installation of three new can lines in Rugby. These will be fully operational in spring 2017 and will start to deliver significant cost and commercial benefits as Britvic heads into 2018.

Simon Litherland, chief executive of Britvic.

In 2017, Britvic will commence the next phase of its investment programme, with a new PET line in London, as well as new aseptic lines in Rugby and in France. In Ireland, Britvic plans changes to its distribution model, outsourcing all warehousing and distribution to increase capacity and reduce cost.

Simon Litherland, chief executive of Britvic, comments: “Britvic has delivered another strong set of results in challenging market conditions. In our core markets, we continued to take market share with a particularly strong carbonates performance. Internationally, we have had an excellent first year in Brazil and Fruit Shoot continued to grow in France, USA with the launch of multi-pack, and latterly in Brazil following its recent launch in Sao Paulo.”

He continues: “We are confident we will mitigate inflationary input costs through a combination of revenue management activities and internal cost saving initiatives. The new financial year has started well and although 2017 will be another challenging year, we expect to deliver pre-exceptional EBITA in line with current market expectations.”