We seem to have an oligopoly in the supply of glass bottles here in South Africa, too.
Consol Glass is the dominant producer. Their only (real?) competitor is Nampak. Both are listed companies, both individually responsible to public shareholders. ROI is their lives.
Nampak produce a restricted range of products, which are remarkably similar to Consol in conformation and price.
The Nampak bottles, surprisingly, never seem to be cheaper than the Consol equivalents.
Should I be surprised that the Nampak furnace is also going to be shut down in February next year?
We also have a speciality glass producer here, who one might think, with a wider range of shapes and colours, be able to save the day for wine producers wanting to provide consumers with choice and competition for their spend.
Unfortunately, this company only runs their furnace once or twice a year, and makes limited volumes. In addition, the company is called Consol Speciality Glass, and they have the same shareholders as the other Consol, who are probably not keen to shoot themselves in the foot.
We have had surprisingly good reaction by consumers to the widespread move toward Stelvin screw cap bottles for fine wine.
Should we not now consider special forms of plastic for fine wine? And leave glass for beer and spirits?
The beer companies have a major business in benefiting from recycling. They wash and recycle bottles (at least here in Southern Africa, up to 5 or 6 times per bottle).

In the late 17th Century, glass packaging for wine retail was a major innovation that enabled the wine trade as we know today to be created and grow, establishing one of the world’s best luxury-good product markets.
In those early years, glass was fabulously expensive, but beat any alternative for practical values hands-down. However, the barrel and household cups and jugs remained a competitor.
With industrialisation, glass became a commodity.
In the wine world, can we afford for glass to be more than a practical commodity?
Do we want a glass container to become a irrreplaceable luxury good for all or most wine products.
Is the wine or the glass bottle the chosen luxury product?
When you finish the wine, you throw away the bottle.

Ok so the problem has been highlighted – what can be done to rectify it? Who needs to be involved and how can one be involved in finding a way to get the sneaky colluders to change their ways?

Can it and will it change?

Maybe an opportunity to go green and use refillable wine bottles – like in French supermarkets where you fill up your bottle from a stainless steel tank.

Most wine (~90%) sold here in the UK is drunk within 7 days of purchase, certainly the big retailers don’t want it hanging around on their shelves for weeks at a time so plastic or tetrapak solutions seem pretty sensible if they’re less engergy intensive. They’d certainly cut down on transport costs.

Recycling bottles helps, reuse would be even better. Milk bottles used to be re-used endlessly, with empty’s picked up from the doorstep. If retailers needed to take back bottles as they do in Michigan, and producers stuck to green or white Burgundy, Bordeaux or Alsace shapes then sterile re-use might be a big step forward.

I am the MD of a glass manufacturing company in South Africa called Glamosa Glass. We are small compared to Consol and Nampak and produces lampware, glass mosaic tiles and household glass. We have recently (Ocotber 2009) expanded our product range to include bottles. Our focus at this stage is on supplying niche, uniquely designed and branded bottles to producers of any product suitable for glass bottle packaging. As such we work with clients to design their bottles. At this stage we are growing rapidly in this market since nobody else can supply this kind of product in SA. If anybody is interested, please contact me at 083 417 0042 or Boshoffs@telkomsa.net