Ball Corp. chairman and CEO Daniel W. Fisher has once again called on major beer manufacturers to deploy “more aggressive pricing” strategies to “push volume,” suggesting those strategies have worked for energy drink companies and other non-alcoholic (NA) beverage producers.
“Non-alcoholic, in general, there’s been enough innovation in that segment, along with more constructive pricing to drive volume,” Fisher said during Ball’s 2025 Q1 earnings report, echoing similar sentiments made on earnings calls last year.
“You haven’t seen that on the beer side.”
Fisher explained that non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers have been innovating and chasing volume, with “moderate pricing in line with CPI [Consumer Price Index], maybe even take a little less than that and go back and get that growth.”
The expectation for beer producers is to moderate pricing during the peak summer selling season in order to move product, but thus far, beer is “a little behind” compared to NA producers.
“I don’t think anybody’s happy where mass beer is here through the first quarter,” Fisher said. “I’m not surprised that they’re going to have to use the affordability lens and push that.”
Nevertheless, Fisher expressed cautious optimism that beer producers will lower prices and increase their marketing efforts to drive volume and sales this summer.
Beer pricing was just one of the hot topics to come up during the call with Ball leadership, who also fielded several questions about tariffs, including the 25% Section 232 tariffs enacted by President Donald Trump on aluminum and steel imports in March.
Throughout the call, Ball execs referred to the company’s “defensive business model,” as well as its “global footprint” as advantages, despite volatility caused by tariffs and “geopolitical dynamics.”
Despite those headwinds, Fisher referred to the start of 2025 as “very constructive” and the tariffs as manageable thus far. The 232 tariffs have amounted to “three-quarters-of-a-cent to a-cent-a-can impact,” which Fisher called “really negligible in the grand scheme of economics.”
“The wild card will be the ongoing shock-and-awe strategy,” he said. “How quickly does that translate into real, identifiable trade deals? Once we see one or two trade deals show up, it starts to really enable us to frame these scenarios and work a problem set that’s identifiable.”
In the next 30 to 60 days, Fisher is hopeful deals will “break loose,” possibly in Japan, Korea and/or Vietnam. Once deals start to emerge, he said Ball will be able to read the “tea leaves” and know “what’s really going on.”
With financial services firms such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan putting the odds of a recession over the next 12 months at anywhere from 45% to 60%, respectively, Fisher assessed Ball’s prospects should a recession come to fruition.
“We’re resilient in a recession,” he said. “We’re not inflationary resistant, but we’re resilient in a recession if that’s where we’re headed, depending on how steep it is. The range still holds, obviously higher to get to the top end, but then the counter, for the positives, would be a weaker dollar. Our fastest growing business, our most profitable business, is Europe. There’s some currency tailwinds there.”
Fisher described a “strong start to the year” for Ball, with execs holding “a very constructive outlook on North America, albeit uncertain.”
“Demand relative to the Chinese tariff impacts is the one thing that it’s probably not agnostic to, it’s consistent across every industry,” he said. “So that’s the one we’re looking at, but we haven’t seen it.”
Fisher added that Ball has yet to see any changes in behavior for its customers or forecast changes.
“There’s certainly been ongoing challenges for brands or categories that are attached more broadly to the Hispanic customer, because they are not as visible commercially right now for a million reasons, and some of them pretty political,” he said. “So we’re watching that. But even with that, that’s been fairly persistent here throughout the first quarter, and hasn’t impacted our volumes to a degree in which we would alter our outlook for the year.”
Ball’s Q1 net earnings reached $216 million, compared to $217 million in the same period last year. Global aluminum packaging shipments increased 2.6% year-over-year in Q1 2025. The company continues to project 2 to 3% global volume growth for the full year.
Ball credited “stronger than expected volume performance” and price/mix in North and Central America for driving a 2% increase in comparable operating earnings. The business unit generated $195 million in operating earnings on $1.46 billion in sales, compared to $192 million in operating earnings on $1.4 billion in sales in Q1 2024.
In North America, volume returned to growth “despite a tough comp and economic pressure on the end consumer,” Fisher said.
“In our North American business, higher than expected volume growth across non-alcoholic categories more than offset ongoing pressures in mass beer,” he continued. “We remain confident in our ability to deliver volume growth in line with or slightly above the market in 2025.”
Asked about capacity, Fisher said the company doesn’t have a lot of excess capacity, although there is “some 12 oz. capacity still hung over from the Bud Light challenge, but not a lot.” He also acknowledged some can sizes are “getting real tight.”
Ball also announced the formation of Oasis Venture Holdings, a strategic partnership that the company will be a minority stakeholder in, for its aluminum cup business. Oasis will encompass the aluminum cup unit’s commercial, supply chain and manufacturing teams, as well as its plant in Rome, Georgia.