Mobile beer canning line is da bomb

It truly was one of those light-bulb moments.

Craig Snider of Kelowna loves beer.

Yet, whenever he dropped by a liquor store, he could rarely find local craft suds in a can.

That's because most of the microbrewers can't afford their own canning facilities or have such limited canning the brews can't be widely sold.

So the light clicked on and Snider suddenly realized he needed to become a mobile canning line entrepreneur.

"I'd been a commercial banker with Bank of Montreal for 15 years, so this was a big leap of faith for me," said Snider of Okanagan Canning.

"Even though it meant going out on my own in a COVID market, it feels pretty good."

Being a commercial banker, Snider did a skookum business plan for Okanagan Canning and found many craft brewers were desperate for affordable and effective canning solutions.

"When I broached the idea with brewers they almost jumped into my arms they were so grateful," said Snider.

"I'm the only local mobile canning line. The closest other one is in Abbotsford and it can't get to the Okanagan enough to meet demand."

So, Snider bought a $150,000 mobile canning line from CASK manufacturing in Calgary.

For towing behind his SUV, the line breaks into three parts and can fit in a 10 foot by six foot trailer.

Upon arrival at a brewery, the line is unfolded and assembled into a 20-foot-long, five-foot-tall, three-foot wide wonder of conveyor belts, pistons and pumps.

Okanagan Canning also provides the cans, plastic rings to hold together four-and-six packs and cardboard flats.

The mobile line can fill about 20 to 25 cans per minute, a lot more than the little hand-filler units some microbrewers use at a rate of two cans a minute.

Generally, craft breweries need Okanagan Canning one or two days a month to fill 355ml and 473ml cans.

With numerous brewery clients, the mobile canning line has become an essential shared resource.

So far, Snider has done canning for Kelowna microbreweries Copper, Shoreline, Rustic Reel, Vice & Virtue; Kelowna cidery Scenic Road and Tailout Brewery in Castlegar.

"Of course, I'm on the lookout for more business," he said.

"I'm talking to breweries in Penticton and more in Kelowna and I want to expand more into the Kootenays and Vernon and Kamloops, too."

Snider also sees an opportunity to do work for wineries, which, more and more, are looking at packaging some of their production in easy-to-cart-around and easy-to-chill cans.

"I can just see myself travelling around BC, hanging out at breweries and wineries and doing their canning," he said.

"It's my very own business and I'm definitely not in an office everyday."