Hawaii. A land like no other. Tourists flock in by the millions to see massive volcanoes,
special geese, and of course, the Hawaiian soda can shape you can’t find anywhere else
in the world. But why does Hawaii have a soda can shape you can’t find anywhere else in the
world? The answer is simple: because they can. Well, because their cans can. I mean,
because their cans can can different than—never mind. It's just economics.
The most obvious difference between Hawaiian cans and regular cans is the ridges around their neck,
which are sort of like flowerless leis for cans, if you don’t think about it too hard.
But the most important difference here isn’t the neck ridges at all. It’s the diameter of the lid.
A regular, non-Hawaiian can lid has a diameter of two and one-eighths inches, just over a
thousandth the diameter of the Epcot golf ball. But a Hawaiian lid is a whopping two and three
eighths inches, also just over a thousandth the diameter of the Epcot golf ball, but critically,
a quarter inch bigger than the normal lids. The Hawaiian lids—known as 206es—were actually
the industry standard for a while, having mostly run the gargantuan 211 lids out of town between
1987 and 1988, because in the can biz, aluminum is money. And the aluminum in a can’s lid is
more than twice as thick—and uses more than twice as much material—as the rest of the can,
making smaller lids a great way to cut your can-ufacturing costs. Sure,
you only save a shred of aluminum per can, but if you’re manufacturing billions of cans a year,
it adds up pretty quickly. And just imagine what you could do with all that extra aluminum! You
could make a cool bike, or a “Smartest Business Guy” trophy, or, you know, a bunch more cans.
But because humanity’s greed knows no bounds, the rest of the world didn’t stop at the 206
lids. They kept shrinking the lids until they reached that nearly microscopic 202 size most
of us enjoy today. But Hawaii never got the memo. Why? Surprise: it’s economics again.
Canned beverages comprise what economists call a “weight-gaining industry,” and not just because of
the physiological impact of sucking down Diet Coke like its air. In this case, “weight-gaining” means
that as the product goes from raw materials to, well, product, it gets heavier. Which also means
that, as soda gets manufactured and packaged, it gets more and more expensive to transport.
Up to 94 percent of the contents of a soda can is just carbonated water, anyway. Are you gonna pay
to ship water to an island? Not if you want a shot at that Smartest Business Guy trophy.
To save on transport costs, soda companies manufacture and bottle their products relatively
close to the point of sale. So wherever you buy your soda, it’s probably not coming from
that far away. If you’re in New York City, for example, your Pepsi is likely coming from one of
the three bottling plants within city limits. So, like most other places, Hawaii’s soda is
bottled locally. But because it’s so remote, companies save on transport by using locally
manufactured cans, too. And if you’re looking for Hawaiian-made cans, look no further than the one
can factory in the state: the Ball Corporation Metal Beverage Packaging plant in Kapolei, O’ahu.
If you know the Ball Corporation, it’s probably for those little mason jars your neighbor sells
her homemade jams in. But they also make about a quarter of the 180 billion cans manufactured
worldwide every year. Cans are a super high-volume product, which means you can get economies of
scale even at really, really big scale. The Hawaiian can market is large enough to support
one high-volume factory like the Ball Plant, but not a second. It’s kind of a Goldilocks situation,
if Goldilocks had been looking to dominate the tropical can market rather than eat bear porridge.
The Kapolei plant supplies cans to everyone from Coca-Cola—which has a bottling plant just thirty
minutes away—to Pepsi, Hawaiian Sun, and soon, HAI—we’re using Ball Corp cans for
our new small-batch IPA: Hops As Interesting. The plant makes about a million cans every day,
which isn’t many in the grand scheme of beverage manufacturing—it would barely
cover my own La Croix habit. And while, globally, it pays off to swap 206 lids for 202s, in a market
as small and remote as Hawaii, changing all the equipment in the can factory—not to mention the
bottling plants—to suit the smaller lid is just too expensive to be worth it. So rather than
invest in overhauling the entire archipelago’s can infrastructure, Hawaii just sticks to the 206es.
So next time you’re in Hawaii, crack into that giant lid and bask in all that extra
aluminum—there’s truly no better way to enjoy the hazy, tolerable taste of Hops As Interesting.
Okay, so Hops As Interesting isn’t real. But if you want to support this channel and a ton
of your other favorite creators, we have a very real, very great option for you: Nebula. Nebula
is a streaming site my creator friends and I built, and it gives everyone a better deal.
We get a bigger cut of the revenue, and you get early access to new videos with zero ads,
and the exciting, big-budget, exclusive originals your subscription pays for:
stuff like Polyphonic Magazine, where Polyphonic interviews some of the most exciting musicians
working today; or Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube’s already award-winning, sword-fighting,
Shakespeare-improving upcoming premiere The Prince; or Wendover’s own Jet Lag: The Game,
where you can watch my writers and I race around the world and break it down post-game in our
Nebula-exclusive aftershow: The Layover. And if you use the link Nebula.tv/hai, all that will only
cost you three dollars a month—a 40% discount! Nebula offers a more sustainable—and honestly,
more fun—way to make and share these videos, so sincerely, thank you so much for supporting it.