Salt Lake City • One of the world’s largest aluminum can distributors is implementing a change that could force small breweries in Utah to make some tough decisions.

According to multiple publications, Ball Corporation will now require that non-contract customers order no fewer than five truckloads (roughly one million cans) per each of their beverages starting on January 1. The previous purchase minimum was one truckload per product.

“It’s going to impact a lot of small craft breweries,” said JC Straub, Brewery Manager at Salt Flats Brewing Company. “We just got a truckload of cans from Ball which used to be their minimum order quantity and now that they are pushing craft brewers out and only focusing on big names, it’s really going to impact us.”

Additionally, Ball will no longer store cans from those non-contract customers in its warehouse and the price-per-can will increase by nearly 50% for at least some of those non-contract customers.

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This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.