Britvic sales hit by rain and recall

A wet-weather sales plunge has piled on the pain at Britvic, the soft drinks firm which is already reeling under a £25m bill to recall childrens' drink Fruit Shoot.

The record rainfall in April and June washed out sales of fizzy and soft drinks, which along with the recall wiped 7.6 per cent off group revenues in the third quarter. The company is pruning back capital spending to £50m this year as a result

Sales of J20 also suffered in the downpours, and sales volumes in Britain fell 7.1 per cent despite market-share gains for Robinsons.

Britvic began the product recall because of a design flaw on the bottle cap, which affects Robinsons Fruit Shoot and Fruit Shoot Hydro packs. It dramatically raised its estimate of the profits blow last week.