Fruit Shoot recall: how did it happen again at Britvic?

Earlier this month, Britvic was forced to recall batches of its Robinsons Fruit Shoot drinks over fears their push-pull cap could be a choking hazard.

In total, three batches of the Apple & Blackcurrant variant with best before dates of March 2020 - which had been sold as 24-bottle multipacks in Tesco and Costco, and as single bottles in McDonald’s - were pulled from shelves as a precaution due to the risk of the white spout becoming detached.

This isn’t the first time Fruit Shoot’s ‘spill-proof’ cap has caused trouble for Britvic. In July 2012, the brand’s entire core range and its Hydro lineup were recalled as a protective measure following a redesign, when an unspecified “packaging safety issue” with the push-pull cap arose.

At the time, Britvic’s prediction that a rollout of an improved cap would cost between £15m and £25m led to its shares plunging by 13.4%.

So, given the enormous cost of that recall, how were the caps allowed to cause trouble again? And does it mean more financial (and reputational) woes for the soft drinks giant?

Britvic is remaining tight-lipped about the technical reasons for the latest recall, and this week gave it no mention in its Q3 trading update. Its recall notice on 1 July referred only to ‘a small number of reports that the spout within the sports bottle cap may become detached unexpectedly’.

However, grocery and packaging experts suggest a number of possible causes, from a misfiring capping machine to unwanted crystallisation of the polymer, which could explain the problem.

Nevertheless, a loose spout is quite an unusual occurrence, says Duncan Goose, founder of bottled water brand One. “It’s a complete new one to me,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the mould design for the spouts has been changed - maybe to save waste or use a new material.”

That said, had packaging fixtures been changed, risk assessments would have been carried out. “With kids’ products, anything to do with choking would be number one on the list,” explains Goose.

For fmcg businesses, typical assessments include the quality manager vetting third-party suppliers of products and services that may affect the quality, safety or legality of its end products. The manager is then responsible for the ongoing assessment of that supplier.

Anomalies

However, anomalies will eventually slip through the net. While any manufacturing failure is “very worrying”, it’s mathematically inevitable given “the sheer scale of the number of pieces of packaging supplied each year, that runs into the tens, if not hundreds, of billions” of units in the UK, says Dick Searle, CEO of The Packaging Federation.

But even though the number of packaging failures each year is “absolutely minuscule”, when one is reported “it’s jolly important” he adds.

Britvic is keen to underline Searle’s points. This month’s recall “affected a single SKU” a spokeswoman stresses. “To put this into context, it impacted approximately 0.0003% of Fruit Shoot products in market through the year.

“However, regardless of how small the quantity, we take every issue that could potentially impact the health or safety of consumers very seriously.”

Happily, there have been no consumer incidents reported as a result of the latest Fruit Shoot scare - which Britvic insists was “not related to any previous recall”. It also stresses that the manufacturing problem “has now been rectified” (and the BSDA is satisfied its code of practice wasn’t contravened).

As a result, it seems unlikely there will be any lingering damage to Britvic. So far, the recall has had no noticeable effect on share price - most likely because the fault was limited to “a very limited number of bottles within a single batch”, according to the supplier, suggesting there won’t be any need for a wholesale redesign, as there was in 2012.

What’s more, if Britvic follows soft drink fashion, the push-pull problem could soon be a thing of the past. Such a bottle cap style is on its way out in the UK, says Martyna Fong, business unit manager for packaging at AMI Consulting.

A regular spout might lack the spill-free and portion-control advantages of a push-pull, but the latter is “quite difficult to sterilise prior to filling the bottle. So, for hygiene reasons, it’s being made redundant”, she suggests.

Most brands are already switching to more traditional sports spouts, says Fong. Britvic may well soon follow suit.