Founded in 2020 by Nate Patena (CEO), Jon Ballas (president) and Ben Rush (CTO), DrinkPAK is a leading contract manufacturer of premium alcoholoic and non-alcoholic canned beverages, providing full-service support for procurement, batching, processing, filling, packaging, warehousing and distribution. The three founders created the company to be a truly brand-centric manufacturer, built upon their years of experience in building, developing and selling two of the highest growth beverage brands of the last decade.
As former brand owners, DrinkPAK’s founders were determined to create a costefficient co-packing operation that would empower emerging brands to design their can size and format according to their brand needs, instead of being driven or limited by the capabilities of their contract manufacturer. Many existing copackers can only package a limited range of can and carton sizes, while consumer demand is driving brands to create new and distinctive formats. By investing in technology, DrinkPAK has been able to modify its production lines so that they can fill any size can and any packaging format that the brand customer requires. The lines are also some of the fastest in the world, with the third production line capable of producing over 2200 cans per minute.
Many consumers today are increasingly requesting variety packs, which combine multiple flavors in a single carton, commonly sold at retailers like Costco, Walmart and beverage stores. While most copackers rely on labor-intensive manual processes to repack individual flavors into variety packs, DrinkPAK has invested in robotics to automate this process, dramatically reducing costs while increasing production volume.
