THE fizz has long gone out of Britvic. Now a shortage of passion fruit is triggering fears of another sales collapse for the embattled drinks group.

The Chelmsford-based maker of J2O fruit drinks is facing a shortage of passion fruit concentrate, a core ingredient in its most popular mix.

The shortage has been triggered by adverse crop conditions in Ecuador, the South American country that is the leading global supplier of passion fruit concentrate.

The round fruit, whose mushy interior is filled with seeds, is popular as an additive in fruit juices, and is a key ingredient in J2O’s orange and passion fruit mix.

However, “extremely poor crops” over the past two seasons, triggered by changing weather patterns and a local insect plague known as chinche patas, have reduced Ecuador’s volume of passion fruit concentrate.

A Britvic spokesman confirmed yesterday that it would be running out of concentrate in July and would have to wait until September for the next crop. Nevertheless, he said that the short-term passion fruit problem, and the associated drop-off expected in J2O consumption, would not have a material impact on Britvic’s financial performance this year.

Britvic, Britain’s second- biggest soft drinks group, also owns the UK licences for Pepsi and 7Up and makes Tango and Robinsons fruit drinks.

The orange and passion fruit-flavoured mix is the most popular among the J2O range, ahead of orange and cranberry and various apple flavours.

The Britvic spokesman said: “We are managing supply according to demand. However, there will come a point during July where we will be unable to meet demand. [But] we are confident that [consumers] will buy any of the other great flavours. Indeed, we have increased supply of these to cover this temporary situation.”

The passion fruit glitch is the latest to affect Britvic, which has endured a torrid start to life as a FTSE 250 company.

Spun off by its majority owners — InterContinental Hotels Group, Whitbread and Pernod Ricard — for more than £460 million in December, Britvic listed at 230p a share. The shares quickly rose to almost 280p by March, but, after a series of dismal trading updates triggered by a collapse in carbonated drinks sales, had fallen to 195¼ at mid-afternoon yesterday.

The share price rout has prompted speculation that private equity bidders, led by PAI Partners, are preparing a takeover bid.

Ecuador

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