India's first consortium ABCAI launched in Hyderabad

Hyderabad, Jun 25: Hindalco Industries Limited, Ball Beverage Packaging (India), and Can-Pack India launched India’s first-of-its-kind consortium Aluminium Beverages Can Association of India (ABCAI) here on Tuesday.

ABCAI goal is to build sustainable aluminium beverage packaging practices that will have a quantum positive impact on business, environment and society.

As a part of the roadmap, ABCAI will commission studies to showcase the benefits of beverage Cans in logistics, refrigeration, water and power conservation. The studies will help to drive the framing, development, and dissemination of best practices for the beverage packaging industry.

“ABCAI intended to collaborate with governments, corporates, trade bodies and consumers and increase awareness about the economic and environmental benefits of aluminium beverage packaging’, Mr Prakash Nedungadi, Group Head, Consumer Insights & Brand Development, Aditya Birla Group told media here.

He said “Aluminium as a packing medium offers significant advantages across the lifecycle including transportation, storage and disposal. An aluminium can weighs just 15 grams whereas a glass bottle, on an average, weighs over 200 grams. Trucks carrying cans are able to transport twice as much liquid as a truck loaded with bottles with much lesser leakage or breakage.

At retail or end-use locations, space efficiency and faster cooling results in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Being infinitely recyclable, a used can is able to return to the shelf as a new can in just 60 days.

All these advantages make aluminium beverage packing ideally suited for the fast-growing Indian beverage market. ABCAI plans to help increase the annual per capita beverage can consumption from 1 can to 8 cans by 2030.”

Mr Amit Lahoti, MD India, Ball Beverage Packaging (India) said that India’s total packaging including in unorganized sector was estimated to 20 billion units per annum. On beverage concerned, it is 2 to 2.5 billion including exports.

He said that Ball Beverage Packaging has 40 per cent market share globally including India. It sells 100 billion cans across the globe from 26 manufacturing units situated in different countries including Europe, Brazil, Russia and among others.

Stating that Ball Beverage Packaging (India) and Can-Pack India were only manufacturing cans in India, Mr Amit said that ABCAI wanyd to focus inventions on glass packaging to Alluminium. " There is no health Hazards with the alluminium packaging ", he added.