Beverage giant Coca-Cola has said it may opt to sell more drinks in plastic bottles in the US if President Donald Trump’s tariffs end up making aluminium cans more costly.
“If one package suffers some increase in input costs, we continue to have other packaging offerings that will allow us to compete in the affordability space. For example, if aluminium cans become more expensive, we can put more emphasis on PET [plastic] bottles,” the company’s chief executive, James Quincey said in a call with investors, according to BBC.
Quincey’s remarks follow Trump’s order for a 25% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US, which has the potential to jack up the price of canned food and drink items in the US.
In December, the company lowered its sustainability target of using 50% recycled materials in its packaging by 2030, to using 35% to 40% by 2035.
Agencies and NGO’s working for a cleaner and less polluted environment have dubbed Coca-Cola as the “top global plastic polluter” for six consecutive years.
Quiency, however, played down the effect of the enhanced tariff on his company’s business arguing that packaging constituted a small fraction of its expenses.
In recent years, Coca-Cola had been selling more products in aluminium containers as part of its marketing and sustainability strategies.
The US imports almost half of the aluminium it uses, according to the United States Geological Survey. So a 25% tariff on all imports is likely to cause cans to become more costly.
After Trump first ordered tariffs on steel in 2018, many can-makers won “exclusions” from those import taxes.
But this time, Trump has ruled out any exemptions from the raised rates either for individual products or for particular countries. UNI XC SSP
