The coronavirus crisis has changed a lot of things about how we live. So-called non-essential businesses were shuttered for weeks, and there has been widespread panic-buying for basic items such as paper towels, toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

The food-supply chain also has been upended. Consumers have been emptying shelves of traditional canned goods soups, beans, tuna, vegetables and fruits. Whole sections of grocery stores have been laid bare.

To meet this new hyper demand for canned goods, the nation’s food processors have been operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But one thing is true: Without cans there are no canned goods. And the demand for metal cans also has spiked geometrically. A recent headline in The New York Times trumpeted, “Boom in Canned Goods Means a Boom in Cans, Too.”