Trying To Lower Bottling Costs

[satph]

My club looked into doing a group buy of a pallet (2,200) empty bottles a few years ago through a local brewery. The price was about $0.167/bottle delivered. The brewery pays less per pallet because they order multiple pallets at a time, and shipping is cheaper because they have a loading dock.

In the end we didn't do the buy. The bottles come shrink wrapped on a pallet with cardboard between each course of bottles. The pallet is 48"x40" and about 4' high. It weighs over 1,100 pounds. You need a forklift to move it. As shipped, it's quite secure, and I haven't seen broken bottles in the pallets I've seen at the brewery. But once you open the shrink wrap, you can't safely move the pallet again. If you don't have a place for the pallet to live, you need 92 cases and/or 367 six-pack holders, and somewhere to put them. We couldn't get the logistics to work out, maybe you can!

 

[CodeSection]

@madscientist451, you make a good point but I will need something larger as can be seen below. I may give him a call again tomorrow.

 

[satph]

I couldn't remember, but the pictures shows there are 6 courses in a pallet. The guy has 3 pallets (so he probably has 6,600 bottles). Maybe he'll sell you 1 pallet and the cases/carriers for it?

 

[IslandLizard]

A small detail... Presentation wise, I'd look into better looking caps at some point.

I would get custom caps made for things like these. The minimum run is probably around 5 or 10k to get into a decent price range. There's something about those color caps from the homebrew store that doesn't quite cut it, IMO, except for maybe the black ones.

 

[Kirkwooder]

Here in New York every commercial bottle has a $.05 deposit on them and people still give me way more than I ever need. When I first started brewing I would buy bottles from a local redemption center for $.10 a bottle. They always came in a case box from the original bottler/brewer, had to be cleaned and labels had to be removed. Now I have a redemption center that gives me all the capable bottles that they don't have a distributor to return them to. A lot of them are the flip tops.

If you don't have deposit laws in your state, ask at a local recycling center. The price for scrap brown glass is next to nothing and any smart business person would love to sell you bottles for a few pennies each, that they otherwise would be getting only pennies a pound for.

On a side note: I'm a business owner, I often give beer to my better customers, and never expect them to give me my bottles back. The beer is a gift, including the bottle and carrier that it came in. Don't risk a good working business relationship over a few beer bottles. If the customer isn't worth the cost of a few bottles, then why would you be giving them the beer in the bottle? Don't let the hobby start being more important than the profession.

 

[LittleRiver]

...Don't risk a good working business relationship over a few beer bottles. If the customer isn't worth the cost of a few bottles, then why would you be giving them the beer in the bottle? Don't let the hobby start being more important than the profession.

I agree, good working business relationships are to be nurtured and protected. But the truth of things is that not all business relationships are good.

I've had to "fire" some clients that had or were attempting to abuse my relationship with them. The "firing" was done not by any kind of angry words or anything like that, but by suddenly being so swamped with other work that I just couldn't attend to their projects, or even get a quote out for them. I've even recommended competitors that they can contact. I try to match the worst clients with the most unscrupulous competitors, I figure they deserve each other.

 

[SEndorf]

On a side note: I'm a business owner, I often give beer to my better customers, and never expect them to give me my bottles back. The beer is a gift, including the bottle and carrier that it came in. Don't risk a good working business relationship over a few beer bottles. If the customer isn't worth the cost of a few bottles, then why would you be giving them the beer in the bottle? Don't let the hobby start being more important than the profession.

An excellent point and a good distinction between banging your family and friends for your bottles back.

 

[applescrap]

Pet bottles. One two liter is a 6 pack. That will lower your cost?!

 

[bpgreen]

The deal for 7000 bottles sounds good to me. The cost of the 2200 bottles is almost $600 delivered, so you're only spending another hundred dollars for about 3x as many bottles.

If you run out of space, you can throw most of them out and still come out ahead.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Lots of good points and ideas guys!

I can't even wrap my head around cleaning 7000 bottles, even over two years.
Factor your cleaning agents into the cost. And your time? Sheesh.

 

[FatDragon]

If they're new bottles, a spritz of sanitizer before filling should be adequate. If the considerate people who return bottles give them a nice rinse or two after pouring, they should be clean enough to treat as new. If they return them dirty, recycle them - you've still got 6,999 more on the shelf.

But yeah, storage would be a pain in the extremities. If the guy won't sell you a single pallet, maybe see if your workplace has a storage unit you could use. Clearly your beer offers value to your workplace at your own personal cost, so it would only be reasonable for them to spot you a place to put the bottles. Then again, maybe you're the boss or self-employed and you already know there's nowhere to put them...

 

[mongoose33]

Lots of good points and ideas guys!

I can't even wrap my head around cleaning 7000 bottles, even over two years.
Factor your cleaning agents into the cost. And your time? Sheesh.

All marketing has costs, as well as client maintenance, and what the OP is doing with his bottles is exactly that.

But I agree...pretty daunting job. I clean my bottles in the dishwasher, so perhaps that'd be a way to speed things up. When I bottle, the clean bottles always get a couple squirts of sanitizer (using a vinator) which rinses away any sheeting agent from the dishwasher and sanitizes them.

I sure wouldn't want to clean 7000 bottles by hand...

 

[CodeSection]

Well, I contacted the seller of the 7,000 bottles. He said it was all or nothing and that a buyer already committed and was coming today. There is no way I can store that many bottles anyway.

If I buy a bulk pack of 2,200 bottles from the Cary Company (https://www.thecarycompany.com/12-oz-amber-long-neck-beer-bottle-pry-off-bulk), with shipping the per bottle cost would be $0.265. I just need to determine how and what kind of truck they use to deliver it. The bulk pack will not fit through any doors at work and depending upon the delivery truck used, the delivery truck may not be able to traverse my driveway to my garage that is on a steep slope. Last year I shipped a very heavy safe to another state and the shipper, Old Dominion Freight Line, could not back up the slope. I ended up moving the safe to a level spot on the driveway for them to pick up.

I guess I could order that bottles with cardboard 24 slot cases, but that would increase the per bottle cost to $.56 (includes shipping). At that price, I might as well negotiate a deal from my LHBS. When I checked into the cost of buying the cardboard cases myself, the cost was $9.20 per case. Definitely not worth going that route at that cost.