Soft drinks lead cans charge

Cans increased their share of the carbonated soft drinks packaging market, taking sales from PET to reach 29.7%.
Cans increased their share of the carbonated soft drinks packaging market, taking sales from PET to reach 29.7%.

Carbonates units soar to almost 5.3bn as hot summer weather sees Britain reach for the fizz

SUNSHINE and warm weather contributed to a year of growth for UK drinks can manufacturers in 2014.
Combined drinks can deliveries for the beer, cider and carbonated soft drinks markets reached 9.819bn for the first time.
That’s an increase of 228m units or 2.4% from 2013.
Soft drinks can deliveries were up by 146m to 5.296bn, an increase of 2.8%.
And, according to Nielsen, cans increased their share of the overall carbonated soft drinks packaging mix by 2.3% to 29.7%, taking share from PET bottles.
All carbonated soft drinks can sizes showed growth over the year with sales of 50cl cans, led by energy drinks, growing by 14.6% compared to 2013.
Full year results show strong performance for beer and cider can deliveries which reached 4.523bn, up 1.9% on 2013.

Nielsen figures show that in the lead up to the festive period, the beer and cider category showed strong volume sales, influenced by a decrease in the price of lager in the 12 weeks to Christmas.
Martin Constable, chairman of the UK Can Makers said: “Drinks cans continue to resonate with consumers and brands, with increases across the board, helped by warm weather which provided stimulus throughout the summer.”