Irn-Bru: How Scotland’s other national drink is conquering England as sales top £220 million

Producer AG Barr has hailed a jump in revenues from its iconic core brand thanks to a combination of “volume and value growth” and continued market share gains in England. This has been supported by a “highly successful” media campaign surrounding the Euros football championship, the group noted in its latest trading statement.

The Cumbernauld-headquartered group flagged overall first-half revenue growth of around 5 per cent with core soft drinks growth slightly ahead of that at 7 per cent. As well as the continuing success for Irn-Bru, which was launched in 1901, there was double-digit growth at Rubicon thanks to “innovation, marketing investment and new distribution gains”. At the Boost energy drink brand, “margin realignment and business integration” is on track and a production sourcing programme is underway.

Overall revenue for the first half of the financial year is expected to be in the region of £221 million, up from £210.4m a year earlier.

New chief executive Euan Sutherland, who recently took over from long-standing incumbent Roger White, said: “The strategic margin rebuild programmes are on plan, guidance on revenue and margin remains unchanged, and we are on track to meet full-year expectations. Our four power brands - Irn-Bru, Rubicon, Boost and Funkin - have clear paths to long-term growth, supported by strong innovation programmes across all of our portfolio and opportunities to work even more closely to add value to our customers, in all channels.

“We continue to invest in our supply chain which will deliver tangible benefits as we insource more of our volume, build capacity to support our growth plans, improve resilience and enhance our margins.”

While the Funkin ready-to-drink cocktails business continued to “grow at pace” on the retail front, off-trade growth was impacted by “short-term issues with third party can production” and the “ongoing challenges in the hospitality sector” where late night venues were said to be particularly affected. Barr said the integration of Boost into Barr Soft Drinks was on track and will be completed in the second half. “Manufacturing synergies” continue to be realised as production is insourced, the group added.

Analysts at house brokerage Shore Capital noted: “AG Barr has issued what to us is a good trading update. AG Barr is a high-quality business in our view, with a core stable of brands that already carry significant clout in their core markets, but also demonstrate the ability to generate organic market share and sales growth over the medium to long term.”

The group unveiled succession plans at the start of February, alongside a full-year trading update flagging figures that turned out to hit the mark. Scots-born Sutherland, who has held high office at the likes of Saga, Superdry and the Co-op Group, took up the reins from the start of May. White had been the drink firm’s first CEO from outside the founding Barr family when he was appointed some two decades ago.

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