Britvic Ireland lays off 100

Britvic Ireland has laid off 100 people from its 730 workforce due to the weak economy and prolonged recession which has damaged sales and profits at Britvic.

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 The parent company wants to radically restructure its operations here where the prolonged recession has severely damaged consumer spend.

Britvic confirmed  the 100 redundancies here as part of a new ‘go to market’ strategy.

“This will require  a restructure of Britvic’s sales and merchandising teams and also provides for increased investment in New Product Development and marketing,” stated the company. The Tango and Robinsons producer is seeking to radically restructure its operations in the country, where it currently employs around 730 people in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

According to the company, its commercial structure pre-recession has been severely damaged and is “no longer reflective of market needs”.

“At this stage as engagement is underway with staff I’m afraid it’s too early to provide an exact breakdown in terms of how many employees will be affected at each Britvic facility,” said a spokeswoman, “What I can advise is that Britvic operations in Dublin Limeick, Cork and Northern Ireland will be impacted”.

Britvic, which also holds the licence for PepsiCo’s drinks in the UK and Ireland, said that it will retrain those commercial staff who remain with the company beyond the end of January.

The company has already invested €7.5 million in its Dublin manufacturing facility and has invested €10 million in new IT systems.

Last month it opened a new customer call centre in Thurles creating nine positions (which will remain unaffected by the changes) and confirmed plans for three new product launches in the first half of this year as well as “significant new marketing initiatives across a range of established brands”.

Andrew Richards, Managing Director of Britvic Ireland, said, “As previously announced, Britvic has been actively engaged with staff and customers to access how best to drive growth in a much-altered market. This is critical given a structural shift in the market over the past three years that has included: volume growth in the grocery channel, contraction in the licensed and impulse categories, increased centralised purchasing and more streamlined distribution and logistics”.

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