How or is the can shortage affecting your neighborhood? I've noticed large portions of the beer shelves in my local stores have become quite bare and wondering if it is the forewarned aluminum shortage coming to fruition or something else like a distribution issue. Given it's still a learning phase for many other industries as the economy rebounds, I'm not too surprised. Maybe I'm the only one experiencing this, but if not curious the cause and how widespread the issue in the craft beer industry.
It was worse a year ago, when no brewery was able to sell draft to accounts. It's equalized some, a couple new plants are about come on line, but it's still a bit of an issue.
No can shortage whatsoever in my neighborhood. In fact, an overwhelming number of neipa sold in cans. Plus plenty of aal.
It was much worse last year. I would hear it constantly from my various reps to the point where I just said "You guys don't have cans, I take it?" whenever the topic came up of not seeing a product from them coming in for weeks. They'd have beer/seltzer just sitting in conditioning tanks with nothing to put them in. A good portion of that was lots of brands are moving to cans over bottles just as a matter of course in the industry, so the demand naturally was higher than usual but the absence of on-premise in 2020 basically forced everything to be packaged in those formats. It's less of an issue now but this year the issue that's facing can availability is the price of aluminum, which has absolutely sky-rocketed. If you think bottles are the solution, there's issues there in certain places, e.g. Mexico currently has a glass shortage as they source from China for a lot of it and they aren't playing ball. So Mexican imported beer is hard to come by right now. Just generally a shit-show overall. Recycle your cans please.
So I find this amusing. I have read articles on this site and other news services about can shortages. So, I decide it is time to take my very large stash of cans to the recycling center. In years past I take my earnings and go and buy a nice spendy bomber of beer to put in the beer fridge for a special day down the road. Usually Fremont. Anyway, show up at the recycling center thinking I am gonna get a nice exchange rate only to find out they aren’t purchasing cans. In fact, they aren’t purchasing any recyclables. You can donate them of course. The old timer there tells me they haven’t bought cans in over a year. So, I am puzzled. How can there be a can shortage, but at the same time too much recyclable product (in this case cans)?
This may sound cynical but...if people are willing to just donate the cans why would the old timer offer to pay for them? Cheers!
That may be the case but I suspect he cares that he will get paid for those cans you donated to him. $0.54/lb. for aluminum cans 6/28/21. Cheers!
I appreciate the insights from an industry insider. Good perspective on some things I hadn't considered. From a shopper's perspective, at least in this corner of the country, I'm not seeing any evidence of shortages. About the only thing I'm noticing is the proliferation of seltzers swallowing up shelf space like kudzu choking out the Southern countryside. Would everything in 12-ounce brown bottles solve the problem? Probably not. But it would make at least one old man happy.
If your state/local municipality doesn't do CRV/doesn't have a beverage container recycling program, then you probably won't be getting any money back on it. It's really odd when there is real money to be made in recycling aluminum. The evidence around normal recycling actually being beneficial or cost-saving is dubious at best but aluminum is one of the few resources that is much more cost effective to recycle than extract/mine. I didn't even mention that there was (and typically is every year around summertime due to a production/maintenance downtime) a particularly bad CO2 shortage in mid-2020 as the cherry on top. As far as not seeing the shortage in your area, I'm speculating here but I would suppose that depends on the kind of volume your area does in can format. And you don't have to tell me about seltzers, every day I'm asked about another new seltzer I couldn't give a shit about, so I desperately cling on to anyone that comes into the store to talk to me, or ask me, about beer.
That is a great rate, if you could get it. No one is buying in my area. I could have hopped the border to Oregon, but that only works if the cans weren’t crushed already according to my intel. Shrug, not worth the hassle trying to find a “buyer.” I would spend more money in gas, than I would get for my haul. Our waste management (trash) also accepts recycling. Except they recently informed their customers they would no longer accept glass. Weird things going on in the recycling world (at least in my corner of the map).
