RTD co-packers

The pattern

RTD is a format, not a product

Nothing in the letters R-T-D tells a facility what is in your can. A ready-to-drink coffee, a canned tea, a hard cocktail and a functional shot all arrive at the same filler. What separates them is upstream — pasteurisation, pH, carbonation, and above all whether alcohol is involved.

Forty of these 57 hold alcohol authorisation, and 19 of them also run canned cocktails specifically. If your RTD contains spirits, wine or a malt base, that number is your real list — the other 17 cannot legally fill it whatever their equipment can do. If it does not, the licensed plants are still open to you, and they tend to be the ones with counter-pressure fillers and the tightest carbonation control.

The practical read: name the base in your first email. "RTD" tells a co-packer nothing they can quote against.

Why this page is different

The second most transparent category we track

Across the 217 facilities we track nationally, 27 publish a minimum — about one in eight. RTD publishes 12 of 57, better than one in five, and second only to hard seltzer.

The reason is the same in both cases: much of this capacity sits inside breweries and canning operations that quote batch sizes as a matter of habit. That habit is worth a lot to a founder, because it is the only way to know before you call whether a plant is your size.