The roots of the Britvic brand can be traced back to a Chelmsford chemist who started producing flavoured mineral waters in the mid-nineteenth century. The Britvic Group was established in 1986 when Bass (now IHG), Whitbread and Allied Breweries (now Pernod) merged their respective soft drinks businesses to form Britannia Soft Drinks Limited, of which Britvic is now the parent company. Britvic was originally established to act as the soft drinks supplier to the pub estates of these three shareholders. Since then the company has gone from strength to strength to become the number two branded soft drinks business in the UK. Its original heartland, the licensed on-premise channel now accounts for around 20% of the group’s revenues.