Twig’s sodas go from glass to aluminum

Bottling company tries canned beverages of select flavors to get into other markets

Twig’s Beverage Company has been bottling delicious Sun Drop soda for decades, and a few years ago, the company started developing its own specialty sodas to quench locals’ thirsts.

Now, those flavors have been canned.

Twig’s has decided to put its root beer, black cherry, orange and grape flavors into aluminum cans in the hopes of getting into additional markets beyond the current grocery stores and other places that sell specialty sodas.

“We find that a lot of events and venues cannot have glass because of the liability of breakage and stuff,” said Lucas Hartwig, who operates Twig’s with his family and was the one spearheading putting the sodas in cans. “That was an opportunity to get into other markets by having cans. Also, some people prefer cans, especially the people who travel here. People visiting here might not want the fragility of the bottles. The cans are a little more durable.”

The project took a little more effort, due to the fact that Twig’s is set up for glass bottles. Hartwig brought in a mobile canner who processed 800 cases of soda in 16 hours.

“They drove up here, and they have all their machinery on wheels, so they just wheeled it all in and hooked it up to our system,” Hartwig said. “It’s all the same soda. We batched it all here and stuff. We did that all in a day.”

Hartwig hopes to have the cans available for sale at the Shawano County Fair and other fairs in the region. The canned soda could also potentially be sold at the Resch Center in Green Bay and other sports arena, he said.

“With Twig’s vs. Sun Drop, there are no territories or regulations,” Hartwig said. “With Twig’s, we can go wherever we want. We can go outside of our territory to other events, and maybe retailers (outside Twig’s Sun Drop territory).”

Whether plans to do more canned soda materialize remains to be seen. A big unveiling planned to be in an outdoor tent had to be moved inside June 26 after the rainy weather changed those plans, but Hartwig is hopeful that once the word gets out, the demand will go up.

“We didn’t want to invest in machinery and stuff, because we don’t know how it’s going to go,” Hartwig said. “We just did a minimum run, and I took a survey to find out the four most popular flavors, and that’s why we’ve got the black cherry, grape, orange and root beer.”

Hartwig noted that some of Twig’s regular distributors have already scooped some of the cans up for retail sales, setting up a waiting game to see if the canned soda takes off.

“We’re just kind of rolling with it,” Hartwig said. “If it works, great. If it turns out to be less than ideal, then we didn’t invest too much in machinery or stuff like that.”

Of course, if the popularity skyrockets, it’ll take some time to can some more soda, as Hartwig noted the mobile canner is booked up for several months.

Hartwig said that Twig’s was considering going with a black can for the sodas to match with its labels versus the standard silver aluminum, but finding someone that made black cans that was available was difficult as the state continues to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

“It was a little pricier, so we went with the (standard) aluminum cans,” Hartwig said. “We got some black tack packs on top that contrasted well, so we might just stick with this style.”


lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com

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