Earlier this month, Britvic was forced to recall batches of its Robinsons Fruit Shoot drinks over fears their push-pull cap could be a choking hazard. Britvic is keen to underline Searle’s points. This month’s recall “affected a single SKU” a spokeswoman stresses. “To put this into context, it impacted approximately 0.0003% of Fruit Shoot products in market through the year. Nevertheless, a loose spout is quite an unusual occurrence, says Duncan Goose, founder of bottled water brand One. “It’s a complete new one to me,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the mould design for the spouts has been changed - maybe to save waste or use a new material.”

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So, given the enormous cost of that recall, how were the caps allowed to cause trouble again? And does it mean more financial (and reputational) woes for the soft drinks giant? Britvic is remaining tight-lipped about the technical reasons for the latest recall, and this week gave it no mention in its Q3 trading update. Its recall notice on 1 July referred only to ‘a small number of reports that the spout within the sports bottle cap may become detached unexpectedly’. As a result, it seems unlikely there will be any lingering damage to Britvic. So far, the recall has had no noticeable effect on share price - most likely because the fault was limited to “a very limited number of bottles within a single batch”, according to the supplier, suggesting there won’t be any need for a wholesale redesign, as there was in 2012. However, regardless of how small the quantity, we take every issue that could potentially impact the health or safety of consumers very seriously.”

Happily, there have been no consumer incidents reported as a result of the latest Fruit Shoot scare - which Britvic insists was “not related to any previous recall”. It also stresses that the manufacturing problem “has now been rectified” (and the BSDA is satisfied its code of practice wasn’t contravened). For fmcg businesses, typical assessments include the quality manager vetting third-party suppliers of products and services that may affect the quality, safety or legality of its end products. The manager is then responsible for the ongoing assessment of that supplier. Anomalies