NEW CHANGES CREATE MORE DIFFICULTIES FOR SMALL BREWERIES

Does the headline sound a little far-fetched? After hearing the latest shocking news from Ball Corporation, one of the world's biggest suppliers of aluminum cans, I'm worried about our local brewers.

We Minnesotans embrace our local breweries. We are proud of what they do, what they stand for, and we show it by supporting their taprooms and buying their unique craft beer products available through many of our local stores.

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BALL CORPORATION MAKING HUGE CHANGES

But Ball Corporation is lifting the minimum number of cans that many producers must order, and also says they will be raising their prices, according to an article in CNN. They will now require non-contract customers, many of which are smaller breweries, to order no less than five truckloads of cans for each of their beverages, starting on January 1st of 2022.  Plus a shocking price-per-can increase of 50%.  The current minimum of can orders is set at just 1 truckload per product.

This short notice gives breweries only six weeks to figure out a new plan of attack. Not only that, even if they COULD make the five truckload minimum, Ball will no longer store the excess cans in their warehouses.

CNN Business was sent a copy of a letter from Ball Corporation which read:

Ball is making investments to bring additional capacity online, and in the meantime, we remain in a tightly constrained supply environment for the foreseeable future. This environment is making it difficult for us to deliver the quality customer experience our customers expect from Ball, and we are making some adjustments to how we do business to remedy that."

Kelly Cordes
Kelly Cordes
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WHAT OUR LOCAL BREWERS HAVE TO SAY

I will be speaking with Nick Barth about this Tuesday morning from 10:40 to 11:00 am on "It Matters with Kelly Cordes to see what Beaver Island Brewing has to say about the news, and what their creative plans are in overcoming this new development.

Other small breweries across the country have stated that they see this as an economic killer for some, and definitely a price increase for those that can manage the change, and/or rethink their business models.

 

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