‘Fruit Shoot recall to cost £25m’
Britvic says its move to recall all its Robinsons Fruit Shoot and Fruit Shoot Hydro drinks last week will cost between £15m and £25m – up to five times more than it previously estimated.
The soft drinks maker says resolving the faulty caps on the drinks’ packaging, which was the root of the recall, is taking longer than expected.
It says it will begin to produce an alternative cap within six weeks but it could take up to six months to fulfil historic levels of demand, which is why the profit impact has increased so sharply.
Britvic had previously said the recall was expected to slice profit before tax by between £1m and £5m in the current financial year.
Drinks and packaging experts last week praised Britvic’s “swift” response to recall its Fruit Shoot and Fruit Shoot Hydro drinks after finding its newly-introduced “Magicaps” were found to break away from the rest of the packaging in testing.
The fault was a particular concern because the drinks are targeted at children and many parents had taken to social networks and online message boards to complain that the packaging ever made it to shelves.
Britvic’s share price had fallen 15.02% to 255.10p at the time of writing (11 July).
