The viral clips and memes surrounding Diet Coke shortages have brought aluminium prices to the center stage, revealing a much deeper inflationary chain reaction. According to reports from ET Now, the shortage itself was inconsistent across stores and delivery platforms, with bulk orders still available and availability remaining uneven rather than collapsed. The real story lies not in the drink itself, but in the aluminium cans that make it disproportionately vulnerable when aluminium supply tightens. India's demand for sugar-free and low-sugar beverages has surged sharply with the onset of summer season, compounded by expectations of a super El Niño developing between May and July 2026 that will likely result in weak monsoon and stronger hot winds.
Globally, aluminium has surged to a four-year high on the London Metal Exchange, touching USD 3,672 per tonne earlier this month, only marginally lower than the four-year high of 3,966 per tonne hit in March 2022. In India, aluminium futures as per MCX hit a record high of 377.15 per kg on April 16, 2026, putting further pressure on the commodity's price. The Middle East region accounts for nearly 7 million metric tonnes of aluminium smelting capacity, roughly 9% of global supply, making disruptions in the region an outsized effect on trade flows and supply chains. Copper, now touted as Red Gold, hit a record high of USD 14,526.45 in late January 2026, with MCX futures reaching a record high of Rs 1,480.3 per kilogram on January 29, 2026.
According to ET Now reports, Urban Automation company KasperTech's Co-founder Ekta Arora revealed that contactors and MCBs have risen nearly 20% in just 2 months due to aluminium and copper price hikes. The rate of SMC FRP panels has spiked nearly 16% in the same time period. Arora noted that everything has become expensive, including fixtures, enclosures, aluminium cable, copper wire, and terminals. The panels inside apartments and street lights, MCBs protecting circuits, copper wiring running behind walls, and terminals connecting them have all seen price increases. Blue Star plans to raise prices across its product range by an average of 5% by end of April, with a 1.5-ton, 3-star air conditioner that earlier cost around ₹35,000–36,000 now rising to nearly ₹39,000–40,000.
As reported by ET Now, Hindustan Unilever increased prices by ₹1–20 across select soaps and detergents last week, marking the second round of hikes after increases in January. HUL's popular soap brands' prices have been raised by ₹2–3 per 100 grams, implying increases of 3–5% across variants. Liril's 100-gram bar now costs ₹41, reflecting a 5.13% hike, while Pears has been increased 4% to ₹52. In detergents, companies are choosing grammage cuts instead of price increases. Palm oil prices, a key soap-making input, have risen before the conflict and accelerated since, while crude-linked derivatives such as polypropylene and linear alkyl benzene are becoming more expensive.
According to ET Now analysis, the Iran conflict cannot be measured by whether Diet Coke is available on a grocery app but by whether your next AC costs ₹4,000 more. The war reached Indian households long before the shelves looked empty, with Diet Coke serving merely as a symbolic representation of global supply shock. LG has already increased AC prices by approximately 5%, with the first round of hikes coming during January-end and February, followed by a second round between late March and early April. For televisions, laptops and smartphones, rising memory chip prices have added another layer of inflation, worsened by supply constraints and AI-driven global demand. Electronics manufacturers typically procure plastics weekly due to storage constraints, meaning they absorb crude-linked price increases immediately.
