ProFill Canning wants to ‘demobilize’ craft breweries that are mobile canning

ProFill showed up at CBC ready to take aim at mobile canning solutions and to offer their own canning line as a more permanent fill-and-seam system.

Mobile canning systems emerged as a creative and convenient solution for breweries who were ready to package but didn’t have the space or capital to buy a whole line of their own. Of course, if you’re hiring a mobile canner, you’re paying for the convenience of someone else maintaining the machine and bringing it to you. It’s a little like renting versus owning a home. There are good reasons you might decide to keep renting, but there are also clear advantages to outright ownership.

In a creative marketing strategy, ProFill, a division of ProBrew, is speaking to those brewers who don’t feel like mobile canning has “long-term” written on it. Their “demobilize” campaign emphasizes the virtues of “independence from mobile canning fees, questionable TPO’s and strict production scheduling.”

It’s a great example of focusing a message to a specific audience. If those things feel burdensome to you, then ProFill wants to help you find something more workable — and permanent.

That’s the pitch. What’s the product?

ProFill built its canning lines to focus on saving beer and reducing O2. The company has a couple kinds of fancy CO2 blasting to get true counter-pressure-gravity filling and to achieve total package oxygen (TPO) levels below 30 ppb (which is pretty damn low).

ProFill’s customizable lines offer canning speeds ranging from 90 cpm to 200 cpm for 12-ounce cans. Its integrated rotary fillers and seamers provide for smooth, continuous, high-speed motion as well as optimal reliability.

According to ProBrew President Derek Deubel, they can outfit you with a complete system (filler and seamer) capable of 180-200 cpm for around $500,000.

Sound like a bloody big pile of money? ProBrew believes it’s better to take your mobile canning fees and invest them in its permanent solution. If you need a little help wrapping your head around whether you can afford that, well, check out the company’s online “demobilization” calculator.

Brad Fruhauff is a good dude, a great beer writer and a contributor to Craft Brewing Business. Plus, he wants to write for your brewery. Check out his other work here.