"Business is fine," said Sunderland.

When asked about the risk to Cadbury of slower consumer spending in Britain, he said: "Cadbury is one of those businesses with an innate resilience to downturns. It is not something you turn away from easily in bad times."

Earlier the group reported an eight per cent increase in its profits before tax and exceptional items to 254 million pounds for the six months to June 20. The figures were in line with stockbrokers forecasts. When asked about the poor performance of 7UP in the US, Sunderland said it was because much of it is handled by bottlers who lack the distribution power of either PepsiCo or Coca-Cola.

Cadbury figures showed 7UP volumes in the United States declined by two per cent at the half year stage.

"7UP tended to be in those systems which performed less well in the firsthalf of the year," said Sunderland.

"We hope to see the process of consolidation continue having kicked it off with acquisitions ourselves," he added.

In May, Cadbury and a joint venture partner completed the acquisition of two independent bottlers in the US Midwest for $724 million. The new joint venture known as The American Bottling Company bottles and distributes about 30 per cent of Dr Pepper/7UP volume in the independent bottling system.

"The route to market and bottling system is an important factor. That is what is driving the success of Sprite," said Sunderland.

7UP competes with Sprite, owned by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo's lemon-lime drink Storm. Storm has so far only undergone a trial launch in a few US states.

"Denver is the original test market where it is going backwards rather than forward. It is also not a particularly strong market for us," said Sunderland.

As well as the competitive threat from Storm, investors are keen to find out how a decision by PepsiCo to set up its ownbottling network and spin off bottling in the United States will impact Cadbury.

The risk for Cadbury is that Pepsi will cease bottling some Cadbury brands in order to concentrate on Pepsi itself. A Pepsi or Coca Cola owned bottler tends to offer more distribution power than an independent bottler.

Pepsi handles about 32 per cent of Cadbury's bottling needs in the United States, including bottling about 40 per cent of 7UP volumes.

"We are not in discussions with Pepsi. I don't think they have yet clarified externally what the reorganisation will entail," said Sunderland.

Coke has already spun off its bottling operations into Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc, in which Coke holds about 44 per cent.

Cadbury shares were off 10 pence at 827P in early trade.