Britvic cautious on pub demand

Britvic cautious on pub demand

Robinsons squash firm Britvic has reported a 29% jump in revenues, but warned pub sales of its soft drinks were facing pressure.

Britvic's revenues haul of £690 million for the 40 weeks to July 6 benefited from last summer's acquisition of the Ballygowan soft drinks arm of cider firm C&C and a marketing campaign behind its Gatorade and Drench products.

The company's still drink volumes in Britain outperformed the market with growth of 7.8%, while carbonates rose 2.6% after a strong performance by Pepsi, which Britvic distributes under licence.

It added that the soft drinks market continued to show "very low growth" in the take-home sector, alongside a further deterioration in pubs. The company said its strong presence with many of the leading pub operators provided it with a "good platform" to outperform the market.

"However, we anticipate that conditions in the licensed on-premise market will remain challenging," it added.

Shares were 3% lower following the trading update on Friday.

Altium Securities reduced its forecasts earlier this week due to expectations that weather over the summer months had not resulted in a major uplift on last year.

It added: "The company has failed to give any indication as to whether the growth in volume has been at the detriment of price. We fear this may very well be the case with deep discounting and change in channel mix affecting price by as much as 8% in stills."

Altium is looking for pre-tax profits of £66.8 million in the year to September, compared with £61.3 million a year earlier.

Analyst Greg Feehely added: "Whilst our estimates are around 9% below consensus, we feel that forecast risk remains on the downside for the full-year and beyond."