Beer in a tin beats a glass for the first time – Seznam Zpravy

In the summer months, ie between June and August, they had cans share of beer sales from the group Pilsen Prazdroj 31.8 percent, while returnable bottles 31.6 percent. KEG barrels, ie packaging distributed to the gastro sector, continued in sales (33.5 percent).

Although the data from the largest brewing group in the Czech Republic, which has a market share of around forty percent, will probably still be a little for traditional glass for the whole year, cans should be hitting glass like in the West.

“In the West, it’s common for cans to dominate packaging. It is clear that this will happen in our country in the future as well,” says Tomáš Maier, who teaches brewing economics at the Czech Agricultural University.

Canning lines are bought not only by large industrial breweries, but also by some breweries, for example the craft producer Permon from Sokolova. Pivovar Kamenice and several other breweries have a line for six million. It helped small producers to sell in stores during covid when pubs were closed.

However, not all breweries have their own canning lines. Several of them use the competitive capabilities or technology of a sister company in the group. This is true, for example, of Pivovarů Lobkowicz, where only the brewery is inside Counter-guilt making a Platan logo.

However, cans are growing in general on the whole market, ie also in industrial production. And as statistics show, they are especially popular in the summer. Aluminum is “portable” because it is light and easy to cool. Customers buy multipacks on holiday, they can be packed into a backpack on a hike and rolled up.

However, aluminum packaging also has disadvantages. “From my point of view, it is a problem that beer goes faster in tins and can also have a metallic taste. On the other hand, it is a great advantage that light does not enter the shaft. Some beers are very sensitive to sunlight,” said Maier.

There is one more problem that needs to be solved systematically. Despite the excellent properties of aluminum for recycling, cans are rarely sorted. And the aluminum that has already been produced can be used almost indefinitely.

Czechs only sort thirty percent of the cans. Seven out of ten cans end up in a landfill or incinerator. In practice, this means that out of 820 million cans, 520 million reusable cans are “lost”.

And then there is a lack of material for recycling in the Czech Republic, so it is bought abroad in the form of waste. This is also the reason why some companies want to introduce a deposit system, which, however, is mostly popular thanks to PET bottles.

“Aluminum is a unique material that combines durability, functionality and flexibility. It is easy to recycle and we can use it again and again without losing its quality. Due to its lightness, the least amount of energy and emissions are used during production,” he says Radek Mádrdirector of Ball Corporation, which is the largest domestic producer of cans.

According to him, the deposit systems in the European Union enable a recycling rate of aluminum cans in circulation up to 90 percent.

A 2022 study by CRU International for the International Aluminum Institute (IAI) says that global demand for aluminum cans will increase from 416 billion pieces in 2020 to 627 billion pieces by 2030. According to Mádro, the growth is mainly inspired by the durable properties of aluminum beverage cans.

Human convenience is partly to blame for the low classification rate. A study by the Ipsos group for Plzeňský Prazdroj shows that the inhabitants of the towns have containers where cans can be thrown five times longer than the yellow and blue containers for plastic and paper. While the containers are yellow according to the packaging company EKO-KOM with an average spacing of 90 meters apart, the can vessels are 446 meters apart. This might put a lot of people off.

Eighteen percent of the respondents even said that they do not have a metal collector in their residence. Even those who own the ship have not won yet. The study says, in 81 percent of cases the container is found to be full.

That is also why manufacturers require the introduction of an advance system that would ensure the distribution of packaging. The back-up system for aluminum cans and PET bottles currently operates in 16 European countries, with Poland and Austria joining them next year. The Czech Republic will become an island without a backup system.