Innovation isn’t bottled — it’s canned

Cans continue to gain share across beverage categories, outperforming glass and plastic as the preferred packaging format for new products. Growth is being driven by consumer trends toward convenience and premiumization, with energy drinks and nonalcoholic options leading the shift. Alcoholic categories remain under pressure, with beer and hard seltzers continuing to decline, while consumers increasingly turn to nonalcoholic beer and functional beverages. At the same time, our colleague Pete Galbo notes that brand owners appear increasingly focused on stabilizing and defending volumes amid ongoing pressure on lower income consumers, and this should support packaged beverage volumes. This volume focus also comes against a backdrop in which cans entered 2026 from a strong position: 2025 performance exceeded expectations, and North American operating rates remain high — we see rates for beverage cans running in the mid-90% this year. 

Brands are introducing lower-sugar sports drinks, portion-controlled mini-can formats catering to budget-sensitive consumers and a wide range of clean-label RTD (ready-to-drink) cocktails and coffees. Packaging differentiation — through smaller sizes, premium finishes and sustainability messaging — continues to support consumer engagement. This innovation cycle is unfolding as pricing and promotion re-intensify across staples. Meanwhile, global beverage-can supply/demand is solid, particularly in Europe and North America. Europe outperformed expectations in 2025, North America tracked in line with expectations, South America/Brazil saw modest growth and Asia declined. New can capacity is coming online in the U.S. and Europe. We’re always leery of new supply, but these next lines appear to be needed and temporary uplifts — such as FIFA World Cup 2026TM— should help absorb incremental supply.

Prior host countries have typically seen volumes run above baseline, and the U.S. could see somewhat stronger trends given higher per-capita consumption, a larger match slate and incremental international visitors from beer-centric markets. Historically, FIFA World Cups also drive trade-ups toward premium brands and cans over bottles, with cans often delivering mid- to high-double-digit volume gains while bottles see minimal growth. In the meantime, new product trends continue to reinforce these advantages: trade-press tracking shows cans have returned to ~50% of new-product formats over the last year, based on our research, versus 43% in 2024. Overall, these dynamics support cans’ position as the most resilient and strategically advantaged packaging format heading into 2026. 

¹ Bank of America is the Official Bank of FIFA World Cup 2026^TM.