Aluminium IS the packaging champion, but…

This week sees the completion of CanTech’s 2025 Supplier Profile edition.

 As I’ve just written in this magazine’s comment, the supplier profiles have been providing an in-depth look at the companies driving metal packaging operations worldwide for many years and make up our yearly ‘bumper’ issue of CanTech. Each company’s contact details, locations, key personnel and expertise is highlighted in their profile. This guide, complemented with key artwork, aims to cover all your can making needs from across the supply chain, as well as from across the globe. Look out for the 2025 Supplier Profile issue from next week!

Elsewhere, Neil McRitchie spotted an interesting article in the BBC yesterday written by MaryLou Costa, covering a visit to Meadow‘s London-based research and development centre where toiletries are being packaged into the aluminium cans (Ball is a partner of Meadow – this is also mentioned).

I’ll imagine the headline of the article could receive some eye-rolling from metal packaging experts. Funnily enough I was scanning the CanTech front cover archives the other day, and we were asking that question way back in the early 2000s, and of course now we know it’s the packaging champion, we just still have work to do to make everyone else realise that.

Retailer costs and consumer affordability definitely do come into it, which is touched upon in the article, and while I applaud the efforts of on-the-go wine options such as those offered by the Canned Wine Group, and the aluminium wine bottles mentioned in the article by Vinca, I do think it’ll take a lot of time, clever campaigns and convincing for consumers to change their mind on what ‘premium’ looks like for wine, which is also echoed by Costa and the Broadland Drinks owner and chief executive she interviews for comment. Glass bottles are the staple in this industry, and it is always good to see what kind of colour wine you’re working with. My friends and I are picky with our rosés, so I can’t imagine people who actually know wine want to compromise on the clear bottle quality, at least for the time being…

On the whole, the article is generous about metal packaging, however it takes a controversial turn at its conclusion, stating:

Innovations in plastic’s sustainability also can’t be ignored, from the development of ones that can be infinitely recycled, to those that are biodegradable.

I’m not sure what Costa means by infinitely recycled or biodegradable, since the true meaning of both of those phrases does not currently (and probably should not) connect with plastic – or the microplastics that are now floating around the ocean, our bodies and the rest of the world. 

However, one important point about plastic was raised by Jamie Stone, a packaging expert at global innovation consultancy, PA Consulting, which was that consumers, especially in the home and personal cate categories, look for “squeezable packaging.” I hadn’t thought of this before, but it goes to show that that feeling has become second-nature in the kitchen and bathroom for a lot of us. The ‘bounceability’ of plastic is also something that perhaps clumsier people expect in their toiletries. Dropping an aluminium bottle could risk denting your bath tub or shower tray more than say a plastic one (and if you’re like me, cause an even bigger bruise on the foot you dropped it on recently). Food for thought, definitely.

I’d be interested in hearing our readers’ thoughts about the points raised above, so feel free to discuss in the comments below this blog.

• Alex Rivers (she/her), CanTech International editor
  Keep in touch via email: [email protected] or LinkedIn: CanTech International magazine