Aluminum is the new TP... Just don't try wiping with it. The latest corona-conomy shortage item is the aluminum can. You're not posting up at the bar with a freshly-poured pint of Heineken. Instead, you're posted on the couch with a six-pack of White Claws and premixed G&T cans. Instead of slurping up ramen from a glass bowl at your local spot, you're hoarding Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup cans in the pantry.
- Sales of aluminum drink cans soared 24% in March at the height of lockdowns. They popped over 16% in April, May, and June as demand can-tinued.
That sound when you pop the lid off... Ball Corp is feeling it. Ball is the world's largest aluminum drink can maker. Not so sexy usually, but baller during an aluminum can shortage. Ball makes cans for massive companies like Coca-Cola, and also confusingly has an aerospace biz that makes up 16% of its sales.
- Ball is adding two new production lines in Texas and Georgia to keep up with demand. Both lines have the capacity to churn out over a billion cans a year. Even so, Ball will still have to import 2B cans from abroad to meet the "crazy" demand from the US.
Perfect business opportunities can be missed... if you're not ready to seize them. Molson Coors left a bunch of Coors Light unsold because it couldn't source enough 12-ounce cans. Coke had to suspend production of Minute Made zero sugar lemonade so it could use those precious cans for more popular drinks. Ball should be popping White Claws and celebrating the aluminum boom — but even the #1 can maker wasn't ready to meet the demand.