Britvic: Fruit Shoot bottle recall could cost £25m

Britvic has warned investors that the cost to the company's profits of recalling its Robinsons Fruit Shoot and Fruit Shoot Hydro packs featuring a newly-designed cap could be as high as £25m.

In a statement Britvic said that despite an ongoing investigation it had been unable to “speedily resolve” the issues regarding the new cap.

“Therefore we have decided to re-supply with an alternative in-market proven sports cap, in the short term. As a result we will start to re-supply customers in six weeks, with a gradual increase to enable us to meet historic levels of demand within six months."

Britvic said it would be “difficult to be precise as to the full financial implications given the developing situation”.

The recall of millions of bottles and reverting to an alternative cap once supplies eventually start heading back into shops meant that the group was looking at what it called “a material financial change”.

“We believe this will now have an impact on the group profit before tax in the region of £15m to £25m across the current and next financial year. This includes an anticipated impact in 2013 financial year of between £5m and £7m,” Britvic said. 

There would be an additional negative impact on working capital which will reverse in 2013, the group added.

Britvic stressed the recall did not affect Fruit Shoot in the US, Australia or Republic of Ireland. Fruit Shoot My-5 is not being recalled and no other Robinsons products are affected.

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