Scotland’s Irn-Bru to move south

The Cumbernauld, Glasgow-based company, which makes the iconic fizzy drink Irn-Bru, said it had now successfully closed, cleared and sold its Mansfield, Nottinghamshire site, made progress in its investment in manufacturing capacity at Cumbernauld and bedded in supply chain changes. However, A G Barr confirmed that the late delivery of the final stage of manufacturing improvements at Cumbernauld and "challenging customer demand profiles" presented it with some issues from a manufacturing and consequential customer service perspective. It had sourced some products from external third party manufacturers and this had impacted operating efficiencies but the most difficult challenges were over although to ensure a high level of customer service smaller volumes as required will continue to be externally sourced. Concerning its plans in the south, A. G. Barr said that its business had grown strongly over the past two years bringing forward the need to plan future investments in production capacity to meet demand forecasts and general growth ambitions. It believed that investment in a new production site in the south of the UK was now viable and undertook to confirm "our specific plans in due course". It is anticipated that the new site ill provide canning capacity along with the potential for additional polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottle-making capacity. The company reported half year sales up by 4% to £124m with pre-tax profit of £16.2m, marginally ahead of last year's halfway mark of £16m).