Every part of a glass container has a job to do. Here’s a quick tour from top to bottom. A glass bottle looks simple, but every part of it is designed for a purpose: sealing, strength, labelling or stability on the filling line. Knowing the names of the parts makes specifications clearer and problems quicker to solve. The same anatomy applies to jars too. They just have a wider mouth, a much shorter neck and a steeper shoulder.

Sand is one of the most abundant materials on earth; But the glass container industry is highly selective about which sand it uses. The reason comes down to chemistry, and it matters more than most people outside the industry realise.

What does it actually take to get thousands of glass bottles and jars from the manufacturer to a customer, on time, in the right place and exactly when they’re needed?