Sales at Carlsberg have slumped 5% in the first quarter as a result of being delisted by Tesco last year.

Beer volumes declined 7% in Western Europe in the period, with the business blaming the decision by Tesco to take the brand off shelves as part of its range review, as well as the withdrawal from less profitable contracts in Finland and Poland.

Revenues in the region fell to DKK 7.8bn (£828m) as result, with 3% coming from an organic decline and 2% because of exchange rates.

Total first quarter sales were down 3% to £13bn at the group despite organic growth of 2% as the brewer increased prices but faced significant currency headwinds of 5% from the devaluing of the Russian rouble and other currencies.

CEO Cees ‘t Hart said: “In the seasonally small first quarter, we delivered a solid start to the year. Applying our new value management approach, we are on our way to strike a better balance between market share, gross margin and earnings. We maintain our full-year outlook for organic operating profit growth.”

Carlsberg is currently working through a three-year turnaround planto stabilise the business, with thousands of jobs being cut so far across its operations, including reducing the size of its production team in Northampton in the Midlands leading to 90 UK redundancies between late 2015 and early 2016.

The brewer’s plan is to focus on craft beer, the Asian market and big cities, as well as turning around the Russian operation. It has cut about 950 SKUs from its tail as part of a review of its supply chain operations and closed eight breweries in China.

The ‘Funding the Journey’ restructuring programme led to one-off costs of DKK8.7bn (£902m) in 2015 and pushed Carlsberg to a net loss of DKK2.6bn (£270m).

Eastern Europe reported a 20% boost in organic revenues in the first quarter but currency issues results in a 2% decline in net revenues to DKK 1.7bn (£180m). The story was in the same in Asia, with overall sales down 1% to DKK 3.5bn (£371m).

Negative currency translation is expected to cost the business DKK 550m (£58m) in 2016, down from a forecast DKK 600m.

Shares in Carlsberg have fallen 3.3% so far today to DKK 617.

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