FDBusiness.com

Britvic is looking to cut 100 jobs at its struggling Irish soft drinks business, which currently employs about 730 people across sites in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Thurles and Belfast. With a brands portfolio including Ballygowan, 7UP, Club, Robinsons and Pepsi, Britvic Ireland is the county’s second largest soft drinks producer. The business was created in 2007 following Britvic’s Eur249m acquisition of the soft drink business of Irish cider producer C&C Group.

However, the continued decline in the Irish soft drinks market has impacted Britvic Ireland at both a revenue and profit level. Indeed, in its last financial year ended October 3rd, 2010, Britvic incurred a one-off impairment charge of £104.2m for the Irish business, which with other exceptional items of £33.7m left the UK-based soft drinks producer with a pre-tax loss of £28.8m against a pre-tax profit of £66.2m in the previous year.