After pleas from the craft brewers and a U.S. senator, Ball Corporation has agreed to postpone the major changes to aluminum-can orders that it announced in November.
Ball shocked independent brewers when it announced November 18 that it would quintuple the size of its minimum orders for printed cans from 204,000 to 1,020,000—i.e., from one truckload to five. It also said that it would no longer store surplus cans for customers who lack contracts. The next day, it announced price hikes ranging from 13 to 28 percent—an extra whammy for brewers already struggling with supply-chain issues and higher prices for materials. Ripple effects throughout the industry are likely to include even higher can prices and a streamlining of SKUs, while brewers seek packaging alternatives.
Ball’s policy changes were set to go into effect on January 1. Aiming to mitigate the disruption to independent brewers, the Brewers Association says it reached out to Ball as well as members of Congress. On December 22, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to Ball urging the company to work with small brewers to “craft mutually beneficial policies.”