“Domestic glass suppliers have not run out of excess inventory, not is there any shortage of raw materials to make glass,” Scott DeFife, president, Glass Packaging Institute, told the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. “All the materials needed to manufacture glass in North America can be sourced in North America,” he added.
DeFife said you can expect supply chain issues for imported glass and other types of materails to remain until port backlogs clear up. That could be not until late 2023, we’ve been told. “It’s a good time to explore where your glass is sourced and see if you can make the switch from imported bottles to bottles manufactured in North America,” he said.
How much glass is imported? About 25% to 30%. The rest is made domestically. Among those raw materials to make glass is, of course, recycled glass. “Glass used in the US by consumers is rarely exported for recycling outside of North America. The pandemic supply chain and trucking logistics issues have impacted the movement of recycled glass, but this has not hampered production of new bottles,” DeFife said.
There’s been an 11.7% increase in imports of empty 750 ml bottles, he said. About 40% of these came from Canada and Mexico, North American suppliers. Through the third quarter, U.S. glass manufacturers shipped 1.5 million glass bottles. Exact sizes aren’t known, but “they tend to fall in the 750 ml category range.” A total of 1.38 billion 750ml bottles were imported to the U.S. Nearly half were imported from Mexico and Canada. “Bottles supplied from these North American countries typically do not encounter port of entry focused delays.”