Soft drinks rivals to score after Britvic own goal

GSK, Coca-Cola, CCE, Innocent and a host of own-label soft drinks suppliers such as Princes and Purity are set to benefit as Britvic’s product recall on its Fruit Shoot drinks this week escalated into the biggest since Cadbury’s salmonella outbreak in 2006.

Britvic pulled all Robinsons Fruit Shoot lines last week after the spout of one of the new sports caps - introduced in May - came off in a six-year-old boy’s mouth, causing him to choke. Though harm was averted, Britvic was forced to revise the cost of the recall from an initial estimate of £1m-5m to up to £25m.

Britvic had hoped that the new spill-proof caps, part of a range relaunch, would help to revive Fruit Shoot’s after volumes fell 10% last year, and value sales declined by 3.7% to £74m [SymphonyIRI 52 w/e 18 Feb] at retail.

But customer safety came first, said Britvic MD Paul Moody. “It was an issue with a very, very small number of caps but we decided the best course of action would be to remove the products from sale. We are conducting a thorough and detailed review.”

Moody added that the drinks giant was still investigating whether it was a design fault with the cap itself, or a manufacturing issue, but it is understood to have stopped working with Austrian packaging giant Alpla, supplier of the ‘Magicaps’ at the centre of the recall.

Britvic owns the trademark for Magicap, which was introduced to Fruit Shoots in May. Last month, the cap won an award at the Starpack Industry Awards and was lauded for its “unique design”. All references to the product have now been removed from the Starpack website.

Moody said Britvic had now identified a “market proven” alternative to the Magicap but, unable to begin supply for six weeks, it would be 4-5 months before normal service was resumed.

Soft drinks rivals were surprised at the mistake. “Before you bring a new product to market, you test it and test it. That is manufacturing 101.

“There’s a lot of science behind sports caps. And it can’t say it wasn’t warned,” he added, referring to Asda’s recall of soft drinks featuring a sports cap, supplied by Princes, last year.

But another rival said no supplier could afford to be smug. “There but for the grace of God,” he said. “We certainly won’t be jumping on Britvic’s grave.”

But a spokeswoman for Asda said Fruit Shoots were being replaced with own label and similar brands on its shelves. It is also understood Capri-Sun orders have spiked following the recall.

Britvic was praised for the speed at which it acted. “This is a textbook recall,” said Andrew Marsden, former Britvic marketing director. “They’ve withdrawn the product and been very public with it.”

Stephen Wilkins, CEO of trade body the Child Safe Packaging Group, agreed. “They have dealt with the recall promptly,” he said. “Thankfully nobody’s choked to death, and they have acted to remove the risk.”

Bill Speirs, a partner at the law firm Brechin Tindal Oatts specialising in product recalls, said the £25m cost would include penalty charges from retailers.

“If you have a substantial volume product you would always have a huge recall cost because you are talking about so many outlets,” he said.