If you're a beverage brand looking at sustainable packaging, Ball Corporation's name comes up fast. They're one of the largest aluminum can producers in the world, and their sustainability story is loud — aluminum recycling advocacy, lower-carbon can stock, bottle-to-bottle programs. Honestly, they were the first supplier we shortlisted when we moved our line from glass to cans.
This checklist is for procurement people and brand founders about to sign a packaging contract. I'm a procurement manager at a 40-person beverage company. I've managed a packaging budget of $180,000 a year for the past 6 years, negotiated with 12+ vendors, and made a few mistakes I'm not proud of. Here's the 7-step checklist I run before committing to any packaging supplier — Ball included.
The Checklist
1. Verify the sustainability claim against real rules
Everything I'd read about big packaging suppliers said you can trust their environmental claims — they have legal teams, they wouldn't overstate. In practice, I found that "sustainable" gets used loosely, even by good companies.
Use the FTC Green Guides (ftc.gov) as your baseline. Per FTC guidelines, a claim like "recyclable" has to be substantiated by evidence. The FTC Green Guides specifically expect that a product called "recyclable" is actually recyclable for at least 60% of the consumers who see the claim. If your packaging needs a specialty drop-off that only exists in a few cities, it's not "recyclable" — it's a mark on your marketing team.
What to ask before you talk price:
- What recycled content is actually in the can, and is that number third-party verified?
- Which green labels are backed by certifications or published data?
- Can you show recycling access rates for the specific markets we sell to?
Ball publishes their sustainability reporting openly, which is more than some competitors do. But a published report isn't the same as an answer tailored to your product and your markets. Ask anyway.
2. Run the total cost of ownership, not the unit price
Unit price is the biggest liar in packaging procurement. In 2023, two vendors bid on our quarterly can order. The first quoted $0.14 per can. The second quoted $0.13 — the cheaper option, on paper. I almost went with the second until I added up what they charged on the side: an $800 setup fee, a pallet split charge for anything under 50,000 units, and freight that added 9% on top. The "cheap" vendor was actually the expensive one. That's about a 15% difference in our packaging cost, hidden in fine print.
Total cost of ownership means base price plus setup, freight, warehousing, MOQ carry costs, and the cost of longer lead times. I built a TCO calculator after getting burned twice, and now I won't take a quote into a meeting without it. That rule applies to Ball Corporation just as much as to any no-name supplier. A good test is to ask for the all-in landed cost per thousand cans and let them walk you through the math. If a supplier won't break it down, that's a red flag.
3. Verify the cans fit your filling line before you fall in love with the look
This sounds basic, but it's where the most expensive surprises show up. A brewery near us ordered 350,000 beautiful cans and then discovered the neck finish didn't match their filler's seamer. They'd checked color, coating, and artwork — everything except the dimension that actually mattered.
Here's a weird analogy: would you buy a manual bilge pump without checking the hose diameter matches your boat's outlet? No. But companies buy cans without checking the diameter spec against their filling line all the time. It's not just size either — flange width, neck profile, and stack height all affect how the can runs at speed.
Ask for engineering samples and run them on your real line, not a benchtop test. A can that looks perfect in a sample box can jam the lidder at 150 cans per minute. This is the most annoying step on the list, and it's the one that pays for itself when you watch thousands of cans run without a hiccup.
4. Think about end-of-life before your customer does
The coffee industry learned this the hard way with single-serve pods. If you've ever read a k-cup coffee pod review, you've seen the pattern: reviewers love the convenience and then feel guilty about the waste. The brand that made the convenience got the blame for the waste problem. That's what happens when packaging looks great in the hand and has no credible end-of-life story.
Aluminum cans have a real advantage here because the recycling infrastructure exists, and the material is valuable enough to actually get collected. But don't stop at "it's aluminum, it's fine." Ask your supplier what the recycling rate looks like in your specific sales regions, and whether the coatings and inks you're planning are compatible with local sorters. The can isn't sustainable until it comes back as a new can. That's a harder conversation to have with a sales rep, but it's the one that keeps your brand from becoming the next cautionary story.
5. Measure the recycling advocacy, not just the slogans
When you compare Ball Corporation sustainable beverage products against the rest of the market, the recycling advocacy genuinely stands out. The phrase "ball corporation aluminum recycling advocacy" isn't just marketing noise; they've put real money into industry coalitions, consumer campaigns, and recycling infrastructure projects. It's one of the reasons we chose them as our main supplier.
Also look at the track record, not just the budget. Are they pushing for better recycling rates in the regions where your product actually sells? Do they publish progress against their own goals? It's pretty easy to spot the difference between a real commitment and a corporate social responsibility slide.
Why should you care as a buyer? Two reasons. First, a higher recycling rate makes your product's environmental story better — you'll be publishing those numbers to your own customers. Second, more recycling means a more stable aluminum supply down the road. A supplier who treats end-of-life as a shared problem is a better long-term partner than one who sells you a shiny can and walks away.
6. Pilot before you scale
I have a hard rule now: any new supplier or new can format gets a pilot run before the main order. "Pilot" means a real production run — 50,000 to 100,000 cans — filled, distributed, and put on a shelf in a test market. Not a handful of lab samples.
In 2022, I skipped a pilot to save about $1,100. The result was a $6,700 rework when the lining failed after the cans had been filled and sitting in a warehouse for three weeks. The lab sample looked fine. The real beverage chemistry killed it. That's the classic save-$80-spend-$400 story, and I'm still annoyed at myself.
With sustainable beverage products, the materials are changing — lighter gauge aluminum, new coatings, new liner technology. Pilot testing is the cheapest insurance you can buy. And it gives your operations team a real training run before the big order lands.
7. Watch how the relationship starts
This one sounds soft, which is exactly why most procurement people skip it. I collect business cards at beverage trade shows and pay attention to what happens next. Why is business card important? Because it's the only thread connecting you to that conversation. The rep who loses your card, mixes up your annual volume, or takes ten days to reply to a basic question is showing you how they'll handle things when your filling line is down.
Granted, first impressions aren't a perfect predictor. But in my experience, a slow, sloppy start rarely turns into a responsive partnership when you need answers in hours, not weeks.
Notes and common mistakes
All seven steps come back to one idea: preventing rework. Skip a check to save a week, and you'll spend a month cleaning up the result. The most common mistakes I see in packaging procurement:
- Comparing unit prices without comparing MOQs. A cheap per-can price means nothing if the minimum order forces you to buy more warehouse space than cans.
- Ignoring the aluminum price surcharge. Most can contracts adjust with the London Metal Exchange index. Ask how the surcharge is calculated and audit it quarterly. (Mental note: re-audit our clause this quarter.)
- Rushing to hit a launch date. A delayed launch costs you some revenue. A failed packaging format costs you shelf credibility.
- Trusting a green label without a source. If they can't show you third-party verification or a public report, treat it as marketing and keep digging.
- Not checking delivery windows against the promotion calendar. We once had a perfectly good can order arrive a week after a promotional launch. The cans were fine. The promotion was dead.
Don't hold me to this, but I'd budget an extra 2–3 weeks of buffer on any first order with a new packaging supplier, especially in peak season. Lead times stretch when everyone needs cans.
5 minutes of verification beats 5 days of correction.
