Poor summer weather hurts Britvic

21st Jul 2011 07:56

Another summer of disappointing weather has hit trading at Britvic, which makes orange juice and has the licence to sell Pepsi in the UK.Drinks sales had been holding up until below average weather resulted in a sharp contraction in the four weeks to 21 July. "Total soft drinks market volume was down 8.2% in GB over the last 4 weeks of the quarter and Ireland was down by 13.2%," the company said. "In GB this is the first quarter of market volume decline in the last two years."Britvic also complained that its promotional activity for Robinsons cordials around the Wimbledon tennis championship was dented somewhat by the poor weather.Britvic is still confident it will meet its expectations for the full year, but chief executive Paul Moody added: "We continue to be cautious about the challenging trading conditions and the impact of consumer sentiment in our largest markets as we move into the final quarter of the financial year."