01-40_WC_149_JUL-AUG26_PT - Flipbook - Page 15
During the summer of 2025, Labatt donated 40,000 cans of
water to Ontario’s Pikangikum First Nation, where a wildfire
forced about 2,000 people from their homes.
Canned water production
Labatt’s Disaster Relief Program was formally established
14 years ago as a natural extension of the company’s longstanding commitment to supporting Canadian communities.
“The first major response came in 2013, when Labatt donated
approximately 60,000 cans of emergency drinking water
following the Calgary floods,” says Cooper. “One of the largest
contributions followed in April 2020, when 223,000 cans –
equivalent to six truckloads – were delivered to Toronto to
support Covid-19 relief efforts.
The program directs a temporary pause in beer production
and reconfiguring of production lines to can water, in two
interconnected, preparatory ways. First, Cooper explains that
“we complete a large production run in early spring and work
closely with our material and packaging suppliers so we can remain agile and scale up for incremental production if required.
Following production, the emergency drinking water is then
pre-positioned across Western, Central and Atlantic Canada
to ensure broad geographic coverage. By building and staging
supply in advance, the program is designed for immediate
deployment, enabling a rapid and coordinated response when
emergencies occur.”
In 2024, Labatt’s Halifax plant temporarily ceased beer
production to facilitate the expansion of water can production.
Labatt also invested $120,000 in new manufacturing technology to support the growing demand for canned water used in
disaster relief, including a nitrogen injection system.
“We use a small amount of nitrogen during canning to remove oxygen and protect the quality of the water,” says Cooper,
“so it stays fresh from packaging through to when it’s opened.”
She explains that expanding emergency water can production
to Halifax strengthens support in Atlantic Canada for emergencies and also enables more efficient coast-to-coast distribution.
But Labatt is not the only beer company to make and donate
cans of water
As the firm explained last year in a press release, production of
canned water began in September 1960, when “Hurricane Donna
hit the Florida Keys and Anheuser-Busch responded by canning
500 cases of emergency drinking water overnight and shipping
them from Miami the following morning.” This started “a tradition
of tapping our local facilities and brewery networks across the country to quickly act during a crisis.”
Highlights of the program include a situation in 1979 when
Anheuser-Busch’s Houston plant proactively shipped drinking
water cans to Jackson, Mississippi “in anticipation that the area’s
clean water supply would be contaminated following flooding
of the Pearl River in other parts of the state.” Some of the water
was used to supply volunteer first responders who were building
levees near Jackson.
In addition, seven years ago in 2019, Anheuser-Busch
expanded its Emergency Drinking Water initiative to support
volunteer U.S. firefighters, in partnership with the National Volunteer Fire Council. From 2019 to 2025, over 3,100 volunteer
fire departments across the U.S. have received millions of free
cans of water to support their missions.
Water can production in the U.S.
In 2025, Labatt’s sister company Anheuser-Busch (both are now
owned by InBev) celebrated a huge milestone related to water
can production—the company surpassed the production of 100
million cans of emergency drinking water (containing about 1.2
billion ounces of water in total) since 1988. That year, 38 years
ago, the company formally launched its ‘Emergency Drinking
Water’ initiative, where, similarly to Labatt, beer production is
paused at some of its plants.
But also like Labatt, Anheuser-Busch had already provided water
to support those facing disasters before a program was formalized.
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