Can seamer demand jumps as businesses focus on to

by: Emily Linnert

Posted: Nov 18, 2020 / 06:05 PM EST

Updated: Nov 18, 2020 / 09:35 PM EST

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — While many businesses hit the skids when the pandemic hit, one Grand Rapids business has hit the gas.

When grabbing a drink with a friend became grabbing a drink to go, Dennis Grumm and his team at Oktober Design saw business soar.

“We go through these pretty quick,” Grumm said, motioning to a stack of empty cans piled from floor to ceiling in his warehouse on the city’s northeast side.

There’s demand from breweries and restaurants around the world for their can seamers.

“Nice thing about that is we’re helping out businesses. We’re allowing breweries to stay open when they had to be shut down,” Grumm said.

The seamers are handmade manual devices that allow businesses to keep selling their product even when the customer can’t enjoy it on site.

“Every single day I get a call from a country that I haven’t before. We started out so small and now we’re shipping not only all over the U.S., all over the world,” Coleman Brook, director of client relations at Oktober Design, said.

It makes sense that Beer City, USA, would also be the birth place of the vessel for to-go beer. But breweries aren’t their only customers. Restaurants with to-go cocktails are also seeing their product fly out the door.

The idea was born about five years ago out of Grumm’s brother-in-law’s wish to can his home brew.

“We just kind of dabbled with it. It took a year, built a prototype and it worked. We eventually figured out there was a market for it,” Grumm said.

Who would have thought 2020 was their year for business to boom?

“We definitely started right at the right time,” Grumm said.

At the beginning of the year, Oktober had just launched a new seamer.

“Probably back then we were selling like seven or eight a day and then immediately we were selling 30 a day,” Grumm said.

They also sell the cans and do labeling.

With all the struggles the restaurant and bar industry has endured this year, there may be some lessons learned that they won’t be quick to drop when we emerge from this pandemic.

“I think a lot of the business is going to stick around for them, too. After they’re allowed to be fully open again, it’s still nice to be able to sell one extra can to a customer,” Grumm said.

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