New year, new exposure

Luke 'The Nuke' Littler is taking the 2025 World Darts Championship by storm, at the age of just 17. Pictured here with the Aqua Libra aluminium bottles. Image: PDC / Taylor Lanning
Happy New Year to all our readers!
Just before the Bell team went on our much-deserved break, CanTech released the December/January edition online, linked here for you to read.
Over the festive period I enjoyed many a canned beverage, from last year’s repeating favourite of Candy Cans (found in music and entertainment retailer HMV this time, as they’re like gold dust to find now!) to Coca-Cola accompanying my new favourite spirit flavour, the Kraken Black Spiced Rum Dark Caramel & Cornish Sea Salt – it’s heavy, but delicious!
I also unexpectedly found myself watching the World Darts Championships, and was delighted to see that Britvic’s Aqua Libra aluminium bottles have taken centre stage at London’s Alexandra Palace during the competition, as the hydration option for the competitors. Although currently they seem to represent a premium option, hopefully this kind of exposure further heightens demand for the metal packaging choice versus plastic bottles. It’s refreshing to see the competitors fuelling up with water rather than beer, especially since this year’s powerhouse (who secured his place in the semi-final after Wednesday 1 January’s game), Luke Littler, is only 17 years of age and therefore cannot legally be served alcohol. I’m sure staying hydrated is the better option for focus and good sportsmanship either way! I expect we’ll also see more non-alcoholic canned options being advertised as we enter another month of Dry January campaigns from beverage brands.
I’m excited to see what other successes and packaging innovations come out of this year. Paris Packaging Week has released its finalists for the 2025 ADF Innovation Awards, the winners of which will be revealed at the end of this month. Cape Decision’s Dominique Huret sits on the judging panel, and has written about some of this year’s entries in our latest magazine edition.
In addition, the featured article from December/January this week covers Recorp’s newly opened can manufacturing plant in New Zealand. The plant utilises two-piece technology from equipment specialist, Belvac, and is expected to product around 750 million cans annually. Read more about that and our other latest articles here.
- Alex Rivers (she/her), CanTech International editor
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