Aluminium supply shortage behind BU-less shelves

By DALE LUMA
THE shortage in BU canned drinks on supermarket shelves is due to a shortage in the global supply of aluminium, Coca-Cola Europacific partners PNG general manager Philippe Mondada says.
“The aluminium supply from Australia has been delayed and the price has also doubled compared with last year,” he said.
“That was basically this month and it has to with the cans.
“There is a lack of aluminium around the world.
“Aluminium is missing, there’s not enough aluminium.
“As a matter of fact the price of aluminium just jumped big time. It costs twice the price from a year ago.
“Bu, the can is a lot bigger, it’s a 355-millilitre instead of 330ml which is the Coke one.
“So it’s not a very common can so we can source that only from one specific factory in Australia and they have been struggling to get enough aluminium on time.
“So we basically have a delay with that bigger can but the can just arrived at the beginning of next week so we are going to produce next week and have it again back on the shelves.”
Mondada said that the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic had disruptions in supply chains around the world and such problems happened from time to time.
He added that foreign exchange had also been an ongoing issue and the company was working with the banks and government to have access to sufficient access to be able to import whatever it needed.
“We always try to source as much as we can locally but there are a couple of things starting with the can which are not available in PNG so we have to import them.”