Bottles, Caps and Labels: A Guide for Sourcing Your Supplies

The containers you choose for your brand will have a big impact on the success of your business. You need to find quality supplies at a good price that cover all your practical needs while also making a visual impact on the shelf. To help you narrow your choices, this supply sourcing guide shows a few areas to consider, followed by a sampling of resources:

Consider Your Brand

Are you supplying sauces and dressings in bulk to restaurants? Then you may want sturdy, food grade plastic containers in bulk sizes. If you are selling an ultra-premium cognac, you may instead want a heavy bottle in a custom shape. Imagine what would be most appealing to your customers, and then get feedback on your ideas.

Balance Your Marketing Ideas Against Practical Matters

A heavy bottle will usually seem to be of higher quality to your customers, but it will also be more expensive to produce and transport. A standard-sized, symmetrical bottle will cost less than a custom shape. It can be filled, capped and labeled faster, but it won’t look as eye-catching. You may also have to follow regulations for handling food, beverages and pharmaceuticals.

Seek Out a Long-Term Partnership

A very low price on Amazon may seem tempting, but then you run the risk of low quality products, poor customer service, and a supply that may run out without notice. Instead, seek out well-established, domestic suppliers with quality guarantees and responsive customer service. Your brand deserves a consistent supply of quality materials.

A Few Suppliers to Try

The following is a partial sampling of some of the resources available. Companies change all the time, so use your own due diligence with these or any other supplier.

• BottleStore.com carries many varieties of bottles, jars, tins, caps and other closures. They let you search by industry or neck size, and their website includes helpful posts and tutorials.
• Freund Container and Supply has subcategories that let you narrow down their vast selection by material, shape, industry, neck and color.
• Berk has an easy-to-follow visual navigation guide to help you select your best bottle shape.
• Saverglass and Burch Bottle & Packaging offer high-quality, custom-designed glass bottles.
• Alpha Packaging can help you create custom molds for plastic bottles, plus their web site contains useful information such as this plastics comparison chart.
• In addition to glass bottles and labels, SKS Bottle & Packaging offers a wide assortment of caps and closures, including metal and plastic caps, child-resistant caps, plastic and glass droppers, and pump sprayers.
• The Cary Company’s wide selection of supplies includes may varieties of induction seal liners.
• U.S. Tape & Label Corp – Family owned and operated since 1950.  Flexographic and HP digital printing capabilities, ISO and GMI certified, Shrink films, Pressure sensitive labels and other flexible packaging solutions… customer service reps, graphics department.
• Century Label designs and prints pressure-sensitive labels, shrink sleeves and flexible packaging. Their own designs have won awards, and they also provide artwork guidelines and barcode requirements. Consolidated Label Co. also offers a large assortment of all types of labels on an easy-to-navigate site.

If you are producing artisan products on a smaller scale, you may want to start with suppliers that offer smaller quantities to help you get started without investing too much at first. As two examples, Northern Brewer sells supplies for beginning beer and wine producers, and Mountain Rose Herbs offers containers, caps and closures for cosmetic products. We hope you learned something from our supply sourcing guide.

Let Apex Help You

Call us at 219-575-7493 or visit our page here to discuss how our capping and bottling solutions can meet your needs. Our machinery can help automate the production with your bottles, caps, labels, and more.