Why Soda Cans are Shaped Differently in Hawaii

We were on a US domestic flight recently, and my wife was served a Sprite that tasted diet, despite not being diet. Upon closer examination it was bottled in Great Britain, and their Sprite recipe has sugar and aspartame (no HFCS). The can was also slightly shorter than normal and only 330ml instead of 354.8ml (12oz). I realize this is not very interesting, but when you're stuck on a plane, it doesn't take much to interest you. I studied the can thoroughly before the trash cart came around.

I love how HAI can make an answer as simple as ”retooling a factory is too expensive” into a 5 minute video.

I collect vintage and international soda cans and I always thought it was odd that hawaiian cans looked almost exactly the same as some cans from the 80s. Now it makes a lot more sense.

Hawaii felt like it’s own country when growing up there. The fast food menus are unique, 7 eleven sells actual food there that is good and worth buying, and even my poor public school had hand made meals every day.

I used to work for Ball Corp (yes the one that owns the plant)as a Metal R/D Engineering (literally doing the R/D to make cans lighter and launch the new Ball Aluminum Cup) and know all about this, and Sam got it exactly right. The technical term for the "neck" of the Hawaiian can is called a "Quad Neck". It necks the can in 4 large operations making that distinct look from the 70's, versus the modern 211 cans with 202 ends have 14-20 necking operations making a smooth neck.

"Okay, so Hops as Interesting isn't real." You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly, sir. Bravo!

I live in Hawaii and I learned something new today. I've always wondered why Hawaiian Sun and Aloha Maid cans looked different.

Fun fact about the Ball Corporation, they have an aerospace division which does some cutting edge work. For example they provided the main mirror assembly of the James Webb Space Telescope (you know, like arguably one of the most important parts of a multi billion dollar telescope).

The Engineering Guy video on this topic is the single most educational video ever released on YouTube. I'm not even exaggerating. It's fantastic.

I feel like we need a hops as interesting now

Fun fact: Ball actually doesn't make Ball jars anymore. They sold off that part of their company years ago and license the Ball name to use on the jars. I think it's Jarden that actually makes them now.

These might only be found in Hawaii within the US, but they are found in many other countries and places. Here in Okinawa, Japan, they are somewhat common, for example.

As a soda can in Hawaii, I can confirm that I am built different.

I moved to the mainland many years back, and I sometimes thought I was noticing a minute difference. I figured I was either imagining it or it was just shrinkflation in action.

Sometime mid-pandemic, I picked up some food from a local cafe and a soda which had a 206 cap. I live in Alaska, so I can only assume that supply chain issues (plus maybe reduced demand in Hawaii from tourism) resulted in us getting some 206s. We get 202s normally.

Japan actually makes a lot of cans with that same shape, I remember buying a can of pocari at an import shop and it had the same can shape. It was also noticably thicker and I suspect it was made out of steel but I never tested it so I don't know.

I've had 206 cans containing imported coconut water (from Thailand I believe). Or at least, that is what I now believe they were. They had the weird neck thing. But they were really much heavier, not just the lid, everything. I found it odd that a non-carbonated drink was in such an overbuilt can.

“Canufacturing” excellent 😂

Yup, can confirm here in NY that Pepsi dominates. PepsiCo headquarters is in Purchase, Westchester County. There's an iconic vintage Pepsi-Cola sign right on the Long Island City waterfront and the reason why that is because Pepsi-Cola once had a bottling plant in Long Island City and the sign used to be on top of it. The facility has since closed and Pepsi moved its Queens operations to College Point, but the sign has remained and was relocated to Gantry Plaza State Park where it was designated a NYC landmark in 2016. I will say though that the point you have for Brooklyn at 2:31 should be on the neighborhood of Canarsie since that's where their Brooklyn bottling plant actually is.

Thanks! I lived in Hawai'i for 10 years, and I never noticed anything different about aluminum cans there. Living there definitely made me aware that shipping is priced by weight more than volume, though. Something as basic as canned soup is a fortune on the Islands compared to the Mainland.