Canovation’s patented end design can turn any metal food or beverage can into a resealable one, from carbonated beverages to wet foods to cannabis.

The cliché for inventive minds is to create a better mousetrap. If applied to packaging, the most obvious “mousetrap” that could benefit from inventive improvement may be the food or beverage can, made of tin-plated steel or aluminum, respectively.

Both are available universally for good reason: they remain go-to containers for food and beverages because they do the job—preserve the contents and do it reliably—and they are cheap.

In short, they are utilitarian as in being functionally ideal containers that—let’s face it—can be viewed as plain-old boring.

Plus there’s one thing metal cans can’t do, and that’s reseal. Once you open a food can you’ve got to store it in another container if you don’t finish it all, which is a universally accepted routine.

Perhaps no longer, which is part of the reason Canovation LLC believes it has a winner with CanReseal, a proprietary, internally-threaded end design that allows an end made of metal or plastic to be screwed into the top of the can and above the standard metal end, transforming the can into a resealable container after opening. All consumers do is remove the CanReseal end and, after opening the can as they usually do, then reapply the CanReseal cap to preserve the remaining contents.

Virtually any metal can of any size of can be adapted to the CanReseal design, according to the inventor, Daniel Zabaleta of Canovation. “CanReseal is adaptable to most any metal package type and application.”

The list of applicable products is expansive, from carbonated to still beverages, dry to wet foods, consumer goods and pharmaceuticals and to paint and other chemicals.

Cans using the CanReseal ends process, perform, ship and store like regular cans.

Whether made of metal or plastic, the CanReseal cap is designed specifically to meet the brand’s product requirements.

Readily adaptable and gaining traction

It is also easily integrated and manufacturable, highly marketable and differentiating and is economical.

What’s required for canmakers to do to manufacture CanReseal cans is to thread the interior of the can end near the top of the can to allow the reseal cap to be screwed down to create an air-tight seal. That positive seal is something overcaps can’t do, Zabaleta points out.

Canmakers would need a set of specialty changeparts for their existing machinery in order to do the threading, which is what Stolle is developing.

And in this eco-driven era, Canovation’s CanReseal is environmentally sustainable and easily recyclable as any standard can when a metal cap is used.

In development over the past months, the technology is poised to advance. “We are currently building up to enter our commercialization stage,” says Zabaleta.  “Stolle Machinery is leading the effort to finalize the development for the commercial version for the CanReseal all-metal, resealable beverage can for still (noncarbonated) applications. We anticipate this will be completed by this summer. We are also working with potential manufacturing and commercialization partners to manufacture the aforementioned beverage solution, hopefully by the end of 2020.”

What about brand interest?

“There are several major beverage and food brands that have expressed interest in the CanReseal container,” Zabaleta discloses. “A couple major beverage brands are in the process of testing the technology for commercial consideration.”

Concurrently, the company is beginning to work with Stolle to develop a resealable container for the rapidly-growing cannabis products market.

“Child Resistance and Dosing functionality can easily be designed into the CanReseal's cap, allowing our resealable cans to comply with current cannabis packaging regulations,” says Zabaleta. 

See the new CanReseal in person during WestPack 2020 (Feb. 11-13; Anaheim, CA) at the Cannabis Packaging Summit in Booth Level 3 Ballroom, as well during MetPack 2020 (May 5-9; Essen, Germany) in Hall 2, Stand 2A18.

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