Better international business drives up revenue at Britvic

29th Jan 2014 07:00

A strong rise in international business drove higher first quarter revenue at Britvic as the soft drinks group reported second quarter trading ahead of last year.Britvic's international revenue rose 5.6% in the 12 weeks to December 22nd, underpinning a 1.3% lift in group revenue to £311.8m at constant exchange rates.The company said trading in the first few weeks of the second quarter was ahead of last year and it was confident that pre-tax earnings before interest this year would be between £148m to £156m.Britvic, which produces brands such as Robinsons, Tango, J2O, Fruit Shoot, French brand Teisseire and Irish brand MiWadi, and rival AG Barr ended merger talks last year.Chief Executive Simon Litherland said: "We delivered a robust first quarter performance in each of our core markets despite a challenging consumer environment."We continued to make good progress implementing our new strategy and remain on-track to deliver our cost reduction initiatives as planned this year."GB revenue rose 1.5% and GB carbonate revenue rose 2.5%, with Pepsi -which it produces in the UK and Ireland under a deal with PepsiCo - continued to outperform the cola market. GB stills revenue declined 0.3% as Fruit Shoot continued to grow in the quarter whilst Robinsons and J20 volumes declined due to rival price-cutting.Irish first quarter comparable revenue rose 2.1% and French revenue lifted 4.7%, with Teisseire Fruit Shoot, in particular, performing strongly.PW