Changes at Ball Canning Could Destabilize the Craft Beer Industry

We've previously read in these forums that Ball was responding to the demand for cans by installing new equipment. I wonder if they installed it in former warehouse space, thus they no longer are able to keep much of a supply on hand.

 

For clarity I should have added at the end of my last paragraph, 'for the small orders'.

 

They've announced new plants, like this one in Nevada:

and two others earlier this year:

 

"Mostly seems to be talking about upping the minimum order of printed cans from 204,000 (one truckload) to 1,020,000 (five truckloads),..."

That may be impactful to some of the larger, distributing craft breweries that use printed cans.

Most of my small(er), local breweries use cans with paper labels glued on or shrink wrapped labels.

Cheers!

 

IIRC, when they announced the AZ plant last year, they said they were gonna focus on the tall, skinny 'energy drink' cans there. Not sure how much relief for the beer industry there would have been there anyway.

 

Non-industry member here, but what would using these cans require as opposed to the standard 12oz or 16oz cans? Is it a lengthy process to convert equipment to the different shape? Is it a completely different set of equipment?

It seems like Sixpoint uses or used these cans at one point too.

 

It depends on exactly which equipment a given brewery has. 2 breweries in my town have the exact same filler, but one is set up for 12oz and the other 16. There's no practical way to switch back and forth. There are other machines that are set up for an easier change-over, but, as one would expect, they're much more expensive. Most smaller breweries who buy their own line, just choose a size and go with it.

As to the Sixpoint cans, yeah, it would have to be a whole different line; the conveyors, guiderails, and chutes would have to adjusted, you would need a different filler altogether, a different inventory of lids, etc. And, there's no guarantee that Ball isn't gonna put the same order size restrictions on those cans.

 

That's what I anticipated, but just wanted to verify.

Thank you.

 

Seven-ounce brown glass bottles: It's Time.

 

A revival?
https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...ing-jan-29-31-2021.654468/page-7#post-7166026

To locate the post above, I figured the easiest way was to search for instances of @jesskidden using the word "dance." Turned out to be a good strategy.

 

I CAN't believe what this has all devolved into. I am sure that I will get blamed for all of it, but I had no CANcept of what might transpire when I beCAN The CANQuest (tm)!

 

And, as mentioned in the recycling thread, a lot of smaller breweries deal with re-sellers. A brewery I'm familiar with only puts one beer into printed cans. The rest get labeled by a reseller up in the Vancouver BC area. It's more expensive, but if you only need 500 cases (12,000 cans) it's the only realistic way to go.

 

If ball had a plant dedicated to producing those cans wouldn't that free up capacity at their existing plants for making more typical beer can sizes?

 

According to the article I read a year ago (so, grains of salt) the demand for energy drink and seltzer cans is so great that the new plant isn't much relief.

 

Weird how easy it is to ignore the things we don't partake of. I never woulda guessed those skinny cans were soaring in demand

 

Wait a minute - I don't have access to their books, but an increase in the cost of an aluminum can triples their expenses? All their expenses? What about labor, ingredients, rent/mortgage, Federal and state taxes, marketing, shipping, wholesaler and retailer mark-up, etc. And that alone would increase the retail price by 30%? Just doesn't make any sense...

Yeah, there's no doubt that "packaging" in general (usually estimated to account for 15 - 20% of the retail cost of beer on the macro level) is an often overlooked brewer's expense by consumers but it not the ONLY expense.

IIRC, correctly a 7 oz. bottle costs about the same as 12 oz., so, essentially nearly doubling the packaging cost per ounce for the brewery. AB, MC and Constellation can probably afford it (although even those brewers' brands 8 X 7oz. packs are usually priced about the same as as their 6 X 12's aren't they?)

Most every US brewery in the pre-craft era offered their flagship brands in 7 oz'ers BUT those were typically returnable/refillable bottles, used on average 10 - 25 times, so the initial expense of the new bottle was spread out.

And those were pretty damn expensive - both for Anchor, I imagine, and then the consumer. I kinda remember them sitting (and sitting and sitting) in sixpacks for around $10-11 and when they started using the standard Anchor 12 oz. bottles the price remained the same?

 

I sense hyperbole in the the original statement you referenced, because I agree with you that tripling total production cost seems highly unlikely. I suspect he was thinking of packaging costs and he was thinking of his related statement that it would be cheaper to send 4 of the 5 truckloads to the recycler, which means he only intended to use 1 truckload and the others were wasted because they hugely exceeded his need or ability to store them.