For Colorado-based Ball Corp., 2025 was among the best years in company history, and World Cup games and other summer celebrations are inspiring bullish sentiment for demand, according to executives in a recent earnings call.
In North and Central America, beverage container volumes grew by 4.8% on the year, compared to overall industry growth of only 2%, CEO Ron Lewis said during his first earnings call in the role. Lewis succeeds Dan Fisher, who stepped down unexpectedly last November. At the time, Ball said in a statement, “The departure is not related to any disagreement with the company.”
During this week’s call, Lewis noted that Ball is pleased with the results from its latest acquisitions and aims to continue that momentum in 2026 amid favorable demand trends.
“Our goal is to keep reinvesting in our business,” he said, pointing to 2025 acquisitions of Florida Can Manufacturing and Europe’s Benepack as well as a new plant in Millersburg, Oregon. Lewis announced on the call the company had closed the acquisition of the two Benepack plants in Belgium and Hungary, countries in which Ball previously had not been present.
Lewis said both the Florida and Benepack acquisitions were bought at attractive prices, providing “a great long runway for strong utilization of these plants in the future.”
Despite the strong showing for 2025, the company is working to make its operations more efficient, using “really disciplined and repeatable manufacturing fundamentals” in the plants and allocating its network to locate can production closer to demand, which helps to manage transportation costs and maintain agility in supplying customers.
Beverage can sales grow despite tariff pressures
CFO Dan Rabbitt said the company was “successfully meeting elevated demand, navigating the complexities of Section 232 tariffs and mitigating risk for us and our customers in a volatile environment.”
Lewis added that while every company monitors tariff developments, Ball has not yet experienced any direct impact aside from the pass-through costs it has seen in onshoring manufacture of its can ends.
And although aluminum prices in the Midwest have shown the effect of tariffs, “so far, the US consumer has been able to continue to keep buying our package,” Lewis said, pointing out that aluminum can volumes grew at about 2% in 2025 while other packaging materials fell by more than 2%.
“So the can is a value in any sort of economic environment, and that’s what we’re hearing from our customers. They’re continuing to lean into selling multipacks of cans because it represents real value for the consumer.”
Supply and demand
As for the new can plant in Oregon, executives indicated that startup will be in the second half of 2026, and they already are bullish on demand.
“In 2026, for North America specifically, quite frankly, we’re sold out, and we are a bit capacity constrained until we can get our Millersburg asset up and running,” Lewis said.
He added that Ball expects the can industry to continue to grow by low single-digit percentages, though he did not elaborate on the breakdown among the three beverage categories – energy drinks, carbonated beverages and beer – that Ball services.
The company has been working to manufacture its can ends domestically, in response to expanded tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, and Rabbitt indicated Ball expects some direct tariff cost in 2026 as well.
Prices for used beverage containers (UBCs) soared to a more than three-year peak in March 2025, according to RecyclingMarkets.Net data, as the US announced a steep hike in tariffs on imported metals.
In its most recent sustainability report, Ball acknowledged other steps it was taking to reduce its carbon footprint and make packaging more sustainable, despite the energy-intensive process required to manufacture aluminum products.
“One key lever for lowering the carbon intensity of our products is to increase the recycled content in the aluminum we use,” the company said in the report.
Ball noted that its average recycled content for global beverage packaging in 2024 was 74%, 4 points higher than the previous year. For North and Central America, the 2024 average was 75%, higher by 1 point on the year. The company aims to reach 85% recycled content by 2030.
In addition, the company developed a new aluminum alloy to allow for higher recycled content in cans, replacing the material used in can ends and providing a mono-material solution, the company said in the sustainability report.
World Cup expected to kick demand higher
The World Cup soccer championship games this summer should help support demand, along with the 250th anniversary of the United States. “There are going to be an amazing amount of celebrations throughout the summer,” Lewis said, adding that subsequent beverage consumption would help support demand for all beverage makers.
Where that demand may rest, however, is yet to be determined. “Yes, we’re really excited about the World Cup, and it will depend on who gets to the finals, obviously, and how well each country performs,” Lewis said. “We’re hoping for Brazil to do really well. And I can hope for America to do really well. But if they don’t, let’s hope for maybe England or Germany to do well.”
