Bottled-Up Demand

New aluminum bottle factory planned for Youngstown, Ohio.

An aluminum container maker is planning a $70 million expansion to install capacity to make the resealable “bottle cans” now being used by some beverage companies.

 

According to a report in the Youngstown (Ohio) Vindicator, Exal Corp. is planning to construct two additional plants in that city over the next two years.

 

Exal Corp., based in Youngstown, needs the increased production capacity to make cans for personal care products as well as resealable beverage bottles, company owner Delfin Gibert has told the newspaper.

 

The company’s aluminum cans for personal care products such as deodorants and scented body sprays for men is its older line of business.

 

But the aluminum beverage bottle business has increased to the point that a $70 million plant is being planned for land adjacent to Exal Corp.’s existing  facility.

 

According to the Vindicator article, Exal began making the resealable aluminum bottles five years ago, and now two of the company’s larger customers, Coca-Cola and Anheuser-Busch, are expanding their product offerings.

 

Exal’s Gibert says beverage makers are finding they can charge more for products in aluminum bottles. "It has strong appeal,” he tells the newspaper of the aluminum bottle. “Consumers perceive it as a nice beer because it's in a nice package."

 

The newspaper reports that Gibert also plans to add six production lines to plants he has opened in recent years in Argentina, France and the Netherlands.

 

Additionally, the company has been working with two pharmaceutical companies to make aluminum cans to dispense some popular medications in a foam format.

 

Asked about the success of the bottle can at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. Commodity Forum in Chicago in September, Novelis Corp. Director of Operations Fritz Gilbert referred to bottle cans as a “nice product,” but remarked that they are currently still a niche product because they cannot be produced as fast as the traditional pop-top can.

Exal Corp.’s Gibert says the new bottle can facility in Youngstown will not greatly increase his North American capacity, but will allow him to produce more bottle cans with fewer employees.

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