11 July 2012

Britvic recall ‘a lesson to other manufacturers’

The soft drinks manufacturer Britvic – which is recalling all Robinsons Fruit Shoot and Fruit Shoot Hydro packs, due to a problem with the new cap design - is being cited as a lesson to other manufacturers.

Commenting on the recall, Dr Christos Tsinopoulos, a supply chain expert at Durham Business School, said the incident was a lesson to other British manufacturers to get their supply chains in better working order.

He added: "Taking a £25m hit and reputational damage for a bottle 'cap' design flaw is embarrassing. Britvic may have identified the problem early on but until the issue has been fully resolved, the company's share price may continue to be hit. Such recalls can have long lasting effects on brands. With the Robinsons Fruit Shoot brand valued at £96m, Britvic will have to carefully rethink its product testing methods as a clear signal to the outside world that this is not a systemic error but a one off."

The company had identified that a small number of caps on Fruit Shoot had been damaged during the manufacturing process. "This is fundamentally a quality issue but as the damaged caps may become fully or partially detached, we recognise that there could potentially be a very small safety risk," the company said. The issue was restricted to the cap only and there were no issues with the soft drink.

Author
Ken Hurst

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