Starting a Ready to Drink (“RTD”) premium cocktail beverage company has it’s inherent challenges. Starting a beverage company with a revolutionary can design, takes these challenges to a whole other level.
Since its invention in 1963, by Reynolds Metals company, there haven’t been any major changes to the aluminum beverage can…that’s over 50 years! Needless to say, the canning industry needed some updates. Our can design was contracted to Designworks USA, a unit of BMW, for a true makeover to the current can design. Not to brag, but we have the coolest looking can by one of the coolest car companies.
While the can design took some time and effort, getting it produced is another challenge. You see, on a worldwide basis, the canning industry produces approximately 370 billion beverage cans/year. Cans are produced by a small group of manufacturers with very expensive canning lines doing the same process, over and over again, hundred times per minute. Trying to get one of these manufacturers to change their tooling to meet the needs of a new can design is difficult but not impossible.
We finally found a manufacturer and ordered thousands of samples. Here is an image of our can before adding artwork.
