India’s leading soft drink and non-alcoholic beverage companies, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Reliance Consumer Products, are scrambling to secure aluminium cans ahead of the peak summer season as regulatory delays and rising demand strain domestic supply.
Beverage companies have sharply increased their import orders from Sri Lanka and West Asia after local can manufacturers struggled to keep pace with demand following the introduction of stricter Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) certification rules. Industry executives said imports have been doubled in some cases to prevent a repeat of last year’s shortages, which disrupted sales during the hottest months.
Aluminium cans were brought under mandatory BIS certification through a quality control order (QCO) in April last year to improve quality, safety and recyclability. The new rules require both domestic and overseas manufacturers to meet detailed technical standards related to material composition, seam strength, pressure resistance and coating stability. However, the certification process — which also involves inspections of overseas plants — has slowed the flow of cans into India.
“Manufacturers need empty cans by the end of February to prepare for summer demand,” said a senior executive at a beverage company. “Last year we faced severe shortages because domestic suppliers could not meet demand, and imports were delayed. This time, we have placed much larger orders overseas so growth is not impacted.”
Cans have become one of the fastest-growing packaging formats in the soft drinks market as consumers prefer them for convenience, portability and recyclability. The rapid expansion of small, affordable packs — including 200-ml cans priced from ₹10 — has further pushed up demand for metallic packaging.
Can makers such as Ball Beverage Packaging and Canpack have indicated that domestic capacity is already fully utilized and adding new production lines could take up to a year. As a result, soft drink companies currently import about 20% of their aluminium can requirements, primarily from Sri Lanka and countries in West Asia that have large, low-cost manufacturing bases.
With summer demand expected to grow in double digits, beverage companies are relying heavily on imported cans to ensure packaging shortages do not once again limit sales during the most important consumption season of the year.