Distil sees volumes and revenue fall in Q4

Drinksmaker Distil said on Thursday that both volumes and revenue had decreased in the three months ended 31 March.

Distil said volumes had fallen 40% and revenues had contracted 37% due to reduced promotional activity in UK major grocery and lapping of "particularly strong export sales" in the prior year.

Although fourth-quarter results were down year-on-year, Distil said the quarter saw it deliver its "strongest trading performance" of the financial year, with unaudited full-year revenue sitting "slightly below" market expectations at £1.32m and unaudited full-year pre-tax losses higher the expected at £710,000.

Despite this, Distil said the outlook for the coming financial year was "positive".

"Q4 delivered the strongest revenues of the financial year, indicating that we are successfully rebuilding following the business remodel in the first half of the year. It has been a transitional year for the business - there was a bigger job to be done than anticipated due to larger volumes of stock available in the trade than reported, however, we are now through the issues that this has caused in previous quarters, and trading well with direct customers. We are confident that we will continue to build on this success and begin to see the benefits of the remodel from Q1 FY23/24," said chairman Don Goulding.

As of 1330 BST, Distil shares were down 4.0% at 0.46p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com