From Mass Production to Mass Customisation: How Digital Is Rewriting the Beverage Can Market

This article is inspired by a FuturePrint Podcast with Clay Oliff, CEO & President of Polytype America. You can listen to the podcast here.

The humble beverage can, long a symbol of industrial scale and manufacturing efficiency, is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. For decades, it has been optimised for one thing: volume. Millions of identical units, produced at extraordinary speed, serving global brands with consistent messaging and predictable demand.

Today, that model is being challenged.

In a recent FuturePrint Podcast conversation, Clay Oliff, President and CEO of Polytype America, offers a clear-eyed view of a market in transition - one shaped not by a single disruption, but by the convergence of changing consumer behaviour, fragmented demand, and the rapid maturation of digital direct-to-shape printing.

At the centre of this shift lies a simple but powerful idea: sameness no longer sells.

A Market Built for Scale Meets a World Demanding Variety

The beverage can has always been an engineering success story. Lightweight yet durable, efficient to transport yet protective of its contents, it remains one of the most effective packaging formats ever developed. But its traditional production model - based on long runs and static designs - reflects a world that is fading.

Consumer expectations have changed.

Where once global brands dominated with uniform messaging, today’s market is increasingly fragmented. Smaller, agile beverage brands are emerging, driven by shifting tastes, lifestyle trends, and a desire for differentiation. Microbreweries, ready-to-drink cocktails, functional beverages, and even canned wine are reshaping the category.

At the same time, alcohol consumption in some mature markets is declining, even as niche segments expand. The result is a more complex, less predictable demand landscape - one that rewards speed, flexibility, and responsiveness over sheer scale.

For Mr Oliff, this fragmentation is not a temporary trend. It is structural. Consumers are no longer satisfied with static branding that remains unchanged for decades. They expect products - and the packaging that represents them - to evolve quickly, reflect local tastes, and, increasingly, speak directly to them.

The Limits of Traditional Printing

This new reality exposes the limitations of conventional decoration methods, particularly dry offset printing - the long-standing standard for beverage cans.

Dry offset excels at volume. It can produce between 1,500 and 2,000 cans per minute, but always with the same image. Changing that image is a slow, labour-intensive process involving lengthy pre-press preparation and complex machine setup. Lead times can stretch from days to weeks.

For large, stable brands, this model still works.

For emerging brands - or for established players seeking agility - it does not.

Short runs, frequent design changes, and rapid product launches are increasingly incompatible with traditional processes. In a market defined by experimentation and speed, the inability to pivot quickly becomes a strategic constraint.

Digital Direct-to-Shape: Closing the Gap

This is where digital direct-to-shape printing begins to reshape the landscape.

Unlike traditional methods, digital eliminates much of the pre-press process. Designs can be transferred directly from file to substrate, enabling same-day sampling and dramatically reducing time to market. Setup times are minimal. Variability comes at no additional cost.

The implications are significant.

Brands can move from concept to shelf in a fraction of the time. They can test new designs, respond to trends, and iterate rapidly without the financial risk associated with long production runs. In effect, digital compresses the distance between idea and execution.

More importantly, it changes the economics of customisation.

What was once prohibitively expensive - producing multiple versions of the same product - becomes viable. A single production run can include thousands of unique designs, each tailored to a specific market, event, or even individual consumer.

Mr Oliff draws a useful analogy: the digital can printer is less like a traditional press and more like an office printer. It can produce a thousand identical outputs - or a thousand entirely different ones - with no interruption.

Packaging as a Dynamic Marketing Platform

This flexibility is redefining the role of the can itself.

Packaging has always been a communication tool, but digital turns it into something closer to a dynamic media channel. Brands can localise messaging by region, personalise campaigns, or integrate variable data such as unique QR codes.

The can becomes not just a container, but a targeted marketing asset.

A product sold in California might carry a different visual identity from the same product in Germany. Campaigns can evolve in real time, responding to social media trends or seasonal shifts. The static “billboard” becomes fluid, adaptive, and context-aware.

For an industry built on mass production, this represents a fundamental shift.

Sustainability: Constraint and Catalyst

Alongside consumer demand, sustainability pressures are also accelerating change.

Regulation and environmental awareness are pushing the industry towards more recyclable, material-efficient solutions. In this context, direct-to-shape printing offers a distinct advantage.

Traditional decoration methods often rely on shrink sleeves or adhesive labels, which can complicate recycling processes. Printing directly onto the can simplifies material streams and improves recyclability.

At the same time, ink development, curing processes, and coating technologies are evolving to meet stricter safety and environmental standards. The shift from UV to aqueous systems in some applications reflects a broader move towards more sustainable production methods.

Here, digital aligns with both regulatory direction and consumer expectation - not as a silver bullet, but as part of a broader system-level transition.

An Emerging Market, Not Yet Mature

Despite its promise, digital direct-to-shape remains in an emerging phase.

Adoption is growing, particularly among brands experimenting with short runs, personalised campaigns, and interactive packaging. Early use cases include variable QR codes, promotional designs, and limited-edition releases.

Yet the full potential of the technology is still being explored.

As Mr Oliff notes, the technical capability is already in place. The next phase of growth will depend as much on creative imagination as on engineering. Brands must learn how to use this new flexibility effectively - to design campaigns that leverage variability, not simply replicate traditional approaches in a digital format.

Will Brands Bring Printing In-House?

One question often raised is whether beverage brands will eventually internalise digital can printing.

The answer, for now, appears cautious.

While some industries have integrated printing into their production lines, the beverage sector presents unique challenges. Inline or nearline printing introduces logistical, safety, and regulatory complexities, particularly when combined with filling operations.

For most brands, the decision remains a classic “buy or build” calculation. As long as specialist providers can deliver high-quality, flexible solutions, the incentive to invest in in-house capability is limited.

That may change over time - but it is not yet a dominant trend.

Reinvention as Strategy

For Polytype, the shift towards digital is not an incremental adjustment but a strategic pivot.

With a history spanning more than a century, the company has repeatedly reinvented itself - from newspaper to analogue direct to shape, and now to digital direct-to-shape. Today, it is investing heavily in digital technology, building dedicated teams and infrastructure to support its growth.

The challenge is not simply technological, but organisational: integrating traditional expertise with emerging capabilities, and preparing for a future in which digital plays an increasingly central role.

A New Balance Between Scale and Agility

The beverage can market is unlikely to abandon traditional production methods entirely. High-volume runs will remain essential for global brands and core product lines.

But the balance is shifting.

Where scale once dominated, agility is now equally important. Where uniformity was the goal, differentiation is becoming the competitive edge. And where packaging was static, it is becoming dynamic.

Digital direct-to-shape printing does not replace the old model. It complements it - extending the capabilities of the industry into new territory.

The result is a more flexible, more responsive, and ultimately more complex packaging ecosystem.

For those able to navigate it, the opportunity is clear: to turn the can from a standardised container into a platform for continuous innovation.