The worst summer on record and the effects of the smoking ban are said to have seriously damaged soft drink sales, according to research this week.
In the latest state-of-trade report from Britvic, soft drink sales only grew by 1.3% to £2.4bn last year.
The Britvic Soft Drinks Report 2008 said: "Up to the end of June, soft drinks were performing exeptionally well compared with the same period the previous year.
"But in the second half, the only sub-catagory that managed to grow sales at all was cola, driven by a strong performance from Pepsi."
Britvics customer management director Andrew Richards added: "Historically if we have a poor summer it takes time for the soft drinks sector to recover."
He also said the effects of the smoking ban would affect trade. "We are still finding our way - suppliers, licensees and end-users.
"We are all adjusting to change and the process will take arounfd one year, judging from other smoking bans."
Despite the poor sales, soft drinks held up better than beer sales, which were down more than 3%.
Britvic's breakdown of the sales performances of the sub-catagories found: colas up 4%; lemonades up 1%; juice drinks up 2%, squashes up 1%; mixers down 1%; fruit juices down 4%; energy drinks down 4%, bottled water up 2% and flavoured carbonates down by 13%.
Richards said the heavy fall in flavoured carbonates was due to changing consumer preferences and a move to a healthier lifestyle.
"Consumers are looking for other experiences, whether it is juice drinks or flavoured water."
He did not think that the publicity surrounding reports that tap water was as good as any bottled water would have any long-term effect.
"Packaged water is of value to many customers who like the assurance that comes with it. Bottled water consumtion with food is high and will continue."