HSA Group – Ce-UnPAC’d : Cepac Ltd Customer Corner – AG Barr

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A.G. Barr plc – Scotland’s Other National Drink, Peddling Offence In Every Can

This is not a rerun of the earlier Ce-UnPAC’d pieces. Those were deliberately toned down. Polite, by TCAP standards. No full reason given for publication. Customer Corner is different. This series links Cepac Ltd to the companies that buy from it, benefit from it, award it, platform it or pretty-up its work, then asks what those customers are comfortable standing beside. First up: A.G. Barr plc, the Irn-Bru machine, whose award-winning Cepac display raises one simple question. Does A.G. Barr think spending money to strike out a disability discrimination claim instead of testing the merits is reward-worthy too?

Customer Corner Opens With A Fizzy Little Receipt

Cepac does not exist in a vacuum.

Someone buys the displays.
Someone signs off the shelf theatre.
Someone gets the shiny cardboard.
Someone gets the award-entry glow while the uglier bits sit out back with the pallets, the lawyers and the emails nobody wants unredacted.

So welcome to Ce-UnPAC’d: Customer Corner.

This series is not saying every Cepac customer personally wrote every Cepac pleading, touched every bundle, or sat there salivating while a disability discrimination claim got dragged into a conduct circus.

Do not be stupid.

It is saying this: corporate ecosystems matter. Customers matter. Awards matter. Procurement matters. If a company is happy to stand next to Cepac for retail glory, then it can stand next to the question TCAP is putting to it now.

What exactly are you rewarding?

Because A.G. Barr’s link is not some half-cut guess shouted from the smoking area. Cepac itself says it won Gold at the POPAI Awards 2022 in the Short Run category for A.G. Barr’s Tastes Magic Wow Display. POPAI’s own listing names Cepac Display Doncaster as the company and Ag Barr as the client.

So there it is.

A.G. Barr gets the display.
Cepac gets the award.
TCAP gets the receipt.

And now the receipt is being shoved under the customer’s nose.

The Award-Winning Cardboard And The Disability Case They Did Not Want Heard

Here is the Customer Corner question.

A.G. Barr got Cepac’s award-winning cardboard. Fine. Congratulations. Lovely retail furniture. Very engaging unit. Smell and taste of Irn-Bru. Beads inside the display. Fizzy orange theatre with a POPAI badge pinned to it.

Now scrape the syrup off and ask the grown-up question.

Would A.G. Barr applaud the way Cepac handled my disability discrimination claim?

Because in my case, Cepac did not simply disprove the merits and walk away clean.

My case was simple. I say I applied for a production role. I say I was told I had been selected for interview. I say I disclosed a mental-health-related work gap and disability context. I say the opportunity then vanished. Cepac denied that an interview had been offered and pointed to the agency route. Page / Michael Page / Page Outsourcing then mattered because the agency layer held the records, call logs, notes and internal communications that could test what was said, when it was said, and who knew what.

That is the fucking case.

Not vibes.
Not my tone.
Not whether I curtsied politely while being dragged through procedural shite.
Not whether a disabled litigant under pressure produced the perfect little HR-approved emotional response.

The case.

And instead of letting the merits breathe, the whole thing was dragged into strike-out, costs, conduct packs, online material, bundle warfare, witness-intimidation allegations, counsel-withdrawal theatre and the familiar legal trick of treating a disabled litigant’s reaction as the main fucking event.

The disability claim was not beaten on the merits.

It was buried under conduct.

So here is the customer question for A.G. Barr:

Is that reward-worthy?

Is that the sort of corporate ecosystem you want Scotland’s other national drink sitting beside?

Because your award-winning display supplier is now part of a much uglier display.

Scotland’s Other National Drink Meets The Merits-Dodging Machine

Listen. If you have ever cracked open an Irn-Bru and felt that metallic tang hit the back of your throat like a Glasgow kiss from a stranger who has already had three, you know the brand.

A.G. Barr trades on Scottish identity, national nostalgia, cheeky offence and enough orange carbonation to strip paint from an old ferry terminal.

This is not about banning Irn-Bru.

It is not about pretending a can of Bru caused the collapse of civilisation, although some of the adverts have had a decent crack at lowering the tone.

This is about the company it keeps.

Cepac is not some cardboard ghost skulking at the edge of the supply chain. Cepac is a real corporate actor with real customers, real awards and real public-facing wins. One of those wins involved A.G. Barr.

And now Cepac’s name is also attached to a disability discrimination case where, in my view, the company fought like hell to make the process about everything except whether discrimination happened.

That matters.

Because Customer Corner is not really about cardboard.

It is about the ethics printed invisibly on the inside of the box.

And right now, that box stinks.

The Advertising Arsenal

A.G. Barr did not build Irn-Bru on subtlety.

It built the thing like a pub argument with bubbles.

The brand’s advertising history has long lived somewhere between cheeky, calculated, and what the actual fuck was that?

There was the advert where a wholesome family scene ended with the mother revealing she used to be a man, followed by the shaving gag. Ofcom banned it after complaints, finding the final scene reinforced negative stereotypes about trans people.

There was the midwife advert, where a woman in labour was supposedly tempted by a can of Irn-Bru. Complaints followed from viewers who found it upsetting in the context of miscarriage and difficult labour.

There was the cow billboard, with the line about wanting to be washed down with Irn-Bru once it became a burger. Hundreds of complaints. Classic Bru logic. Kick the hornet’s nest, call it irreverence, bank the noise.

Then came the push-up bra advert, which drew more than 170 complaints and still got cleared.

This is the Barr routine.

Provoke.
Shrug.
Call it humour.
Enjoy the free coverage.

Very bold. Very cheeky. Very convenient when offence is part of the sales strategy.

So A.G. Barr should understand Customer Corner perfectly.

If offence can sell a drink, scrutiny can follow the packaging.

They cannot build a brand on poking the public in the eye, then clutch the corporate pearls when someone follows the cardboard trail back to the shelf.

Sugar Roulette And The Great Taste Betrayal

Then came the sugar levy era, and A.G. Barr did what corporate drinks companies do when a taxman starts counting grams.

It reformulated.

In 2017, A.G. Barr announced that regular Irn-Bru would cut sugar from 10.3g per 100ml to 4.7g per 100ml from January 2018. The company said regular Irn-Bru would remain a sugary drink, but would now be blended with low-calorie sweeteners.

Fans reacted like someone had replaced the family dog with a laminated photograph.

Petitions. Stockpiling. Nostalgia panic. The works.

A.G. Barr told people most drinkers would not notice. Of course it did. That is the corporate line. The thing you loved has been quietly changed by spreadsheet, but please continue experiencing the correct emotions at full price.

By 2026, A.G. Barr’s own brand listing shows regular Irn-Bru at 4.5g sugars per 100ml. Late-2025 reporting then said further sugar-tax threshold changes could force another review.

Recipe as heritage when selling it.
Recipe as adjustable financial instrument when taxing it.

Lovely little fizzy hedge.

Bottle Bombs And Fizzy Self-Defence

The product has not always stayed politely in the bottle either.

In 2018, A.G. Barr recalled 750ml glass bottles across several drinks after concerns that caps might pop off unexpectedly and cause injury.

Then in 2022, Irn-Bru Regular and Irn-Bru 1901 750ml glass bottles were recalled again after reports of caps popping off unexpectedly, with warnings that consumers should open bottles carefully and point them away from the body.

There is something almost poetic about it.

A brand famous for marketing that wants to start a fight ends up selling bottles that might start one themselves.

No villain monologue needed. Just a drink cap trying to leave the employment relationship early.

Workers, Pickets And The Cumbernauld Reality Check

Behind the orange glow and national folklore sits the usual machinery.

In 2023, trucker and shunter drivers at A.G. Barr’s Cumbernauld production and distribution centre took strike action after rejecting a 5 percent pay offer. Unite called it a real-terms pay cut. Reports covered 24-hour stoppages, an overtime ban and warnings about possible disruption to Irn-Bru supplies.

Unite later accused A.G. Barr of anti-union tactics. A.G. Barr denied wrongdoing and said it respected workers’ right to strike.

So there it is.

Scottish pride on the shelf.
Industrial dispute at the gate.
Corporate fairness statement in the middle.

The drink that sells itself as national character still depends on people moving pallets, driving trucks and doing the actual graft. Funny how often the people closest to the production line are the ones told to be reasonable while the brand bathes in heritage.

Now Ask Barr The Customer Question

A.G. Barr can decide for itself whether this is the sort of supplier relationship it wants sitting under its brand.

But TCAP is asking the question publicly because that is what Customer Corner is for.

Does A.G. Barr think it is fine for an award-winning packaging partner to spend money trying to strike out a disability discrimination claim rather than have the underlying recruitment facts tested?

Does it think a disability case should be buried under conduct theatre when the live issues include interview selection, health disclosure, Page records, redactions, knowledge, chronology and disputed recruitment accounts?

Does it think a disabled litigant in person should be drowned in procedure, late material, costs threats and curated screenshots, then blamed for dysregulating under pressure?

Does it think that is responsible corporate conduct?

Because that is the contrast.

On one side: award-winning display work for A.G. Barr.

On the other: a discrimination case where, in my view, Cepac fought like hell to make the process about everything except whether discrimination happened.

That is not a small distinction.

That is the whole fucking point.

This Is Not The Old Soft Ce-UnPAC’d

Let us be clear about the shift.

The earlier Cepac pieces were not the full blast.

They were deliberately toned down. Polite, by TCAP standards. Careful enough that the real reason for publication was not fully set out. They identified issues, raised pressure and put material into the public domain, but they did not explain the whole machinery behind why Cepac was being covered in the first place.

Customer Corner is different.

This is not just look at Cepac.

This is look who Cepac works with.
This is look who benefits from the polished cardboard.
This is look at the supplier network while a disability discrimination claim gets buried under conduct, costs and procedural theatre.

That is the difference.

A.G. Barr is not being dragged in because TCAP fancied a can of Bru and a fight. A.G. Barr is here because Cepac publicly tied itself to A.G. Barr through award-winning display work. That gives A.G. Barr a fair question to answer.

Does it care what its supplier does outside the display room?

Or is the corporate ethic simply this: as long as the cardboard smells like Irn-Bru and wins awards, nobody asks what else the supplier is doing?

Because if that is the standard, fine.

TCAP will document that too.

The Merit They Did Not Want To Touch

The underlying disability claim was not some abstract moan.

It had a simple spine.

I say I was moved toward interview.
I say I disclosed mental-health-related work absence / disability context.
I say the opportunity then vanished.
Cepac denies the interview offer and says I was not selected.
Page / the agency layer matters because it holds the records that could test the whole thing.

That is why Page mattered.
That is why redactions mattered.
That is why unredacted documents mattered.
That is why call logs, system notes and internal emails mattered.

But the further the case went, the more it became about my tone, my posts, my reaction, my volume, my supposed conduct.

Funny that.

A respondent confident in the merits usually wants the facts tested.

A respondent less keen on the facts reaches for collateral procedure, costs, conduct, labels and anything else that moves the spotlight away from the recruitment chain.

That is what I say happened here.

A.G. Barr can ask Cepac whether I am wrong.

Not with press-release gloss.
Not with awards-night confetti.
Not with cardboard beads inside a display.

With the actual record.

The £20,000 Question

The Tribunal struck the claim out and ordered £20,000 costs.

There it is. The shiny little hammer.

But before anyone starts clapping like a seal at a law-firm breakfast, ask what that actually rewards.

Does it reward disproving discrimination?
No.

Does it reward testing the recruitment chain?
No.

Does it reward unredacting the Page material and putting the merits under light?
No.

It rewards ending the case through conduct, procedure and costs.

And that is exactly why A.G. Barr gets the question.

If you are happy to stand next to Cepac’s award-winning display work, are you happy to stand next to this too?

A disabled man says he was discriminated against trying to return to work.
The company says no.
The agency records matter.
The redactions matter.
The contradictions matter.
The merits never get heard.
The disabled litigant gets a £20,000 costs order.

That is not justice with a bow on it.

That is a fucking warning label.

Customer Corner Is The Invoice

This is what Customer Corner does.

It sends the question up the chain.

Not because A.G. Barr caused my case.
Not because A.G. Barr wrote Cepac’s pleadings.
Not because A.G. Barr ran Page’s redactions.
Not because A.G. Barr told anyone to build a conduct narrative around a disabled litigant in person.

That would be stupid, and this piece is many things, but not that.

A.G. Barr is here because it is a documented Cepac customer in an award-winning display project. That link opens the door.

And once the door is open, TCAP is asking what sits behind the retail gloss.

A.G. Barr built an empire on a drink that sells attitude. Fine. Here is some attitude back.

When your packaging partner wins awards for your displays and then, in a separate matter, stands accused of spending heavily to avoid the merits of a disability discrimination claim, people are entitled to ask what sort of company network they are looking at.

Because corporate reputations do not live in sealed cans.

They leak.
They fizz.
They stain the fucking shelf.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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