Soft drinks firm Britvic has reported a 5.1% increase in revenue to £678m for the 28 weeks to 10 April, despite having to weather a “challenging customer environment”.
Pre-tax profits climbed from £51m to £54.5m, with EBITA up 7.1% to £69m.
In April this year, Britvic signed a £12m contract with Harris Construction Management to increase capacity at its Bramley site near Leeds.
An additional 86,000sq ft has been added to these production and warehousing facilities, which are now operational. It will enable capacity to be increased by 25% to 120,000 cans per hour.
Simon Litherland, Britvic chief executive officer commented: “We have reported a 7.1% increase in EBITA in the first half of the year despite the challenging customer environment and continued price deflation in our core markets.
“We have outperformed the soft drinks category in each of our core markets, gaining market share as a result. Our recent acquisition in Brazil is growing ahead of last year and Fruit Shoot multi-pack is being launched in the USA.
“We continue to invest behind the longer term drivers of growth - supply chain efficiency in GB, innovation and our international businesses - and I remain excited about our ability to drive sustainable revenue growth in the years ahead.”
