Summer is a busy season for many alcohol producers, but craft brewers in the Maritimes say increased demand for beer has caused concerns about can supply.
“I put another order in for five pallets a couple weeks ago expecting a six-to-eight-week delivery, and I just yesterday was told it was going to stretch to a minimum of 10-12 weeks just because the supply chain is just so overloaded,” says Marc Melanson, owner of Flying Boats Brewing in Dieppe, N.B.
Delays in shipments can be attributed to several factors.
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, business shutdowns forced breweries to scramble to fill cans; the majority of beer shipped to restaurants would typically be in kegs.
Three months later, people are still staying home as a result of the pandemic, and brewers are filling more commercial cans over kegs.
“Cans are getting pretty scarce at this time,” says Serge Nadeau, co-owner of CAVOK Brewing Co. in Dieppe.
But the competition for cans isn’t just from beer brewers.
“There’s a lot of people that are bringing a lot of products home, whether it be sodas, beer,” Nadeau says.
The Craft Brewers Association of Nova Scotia president Emily Tipton says while its role is typically to advocate for change with government policy, the group has heard about recent delays in bottle and can supply shipments.
Tipton, a co-owner and beer engineer at Boxing Rock in Shelburne, N.S., says the demand has been heavy.
“We operate, as I’m sure most breweries do, ‘just in time,'” she says. “I don’t have six months of cans or bottles sitting at my brewery, it’s more like a few weeks.”
The Canadian Craft Brewers Association says the threat of aluminum tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump is where their concern currently lies.
“Even just the threat of that changes market dynamics, and that’s what we’re worried about. In 2018, it caused a real havoc and disruption in terms of the supply available to us in Canada,” says Rick Dalmazzi, the association’s executive director.
Tipton says running into a shortage would be a serious concern.
“But I don’t think that’s the case right now; I think it’s suppliers catching up with demand as a result of the current situation,” she says.
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