Indian processed food manufacturers, especially small and medium companies, have been finding themselves in difficulty in the last two months over an extended shortage of glass bottles that has forced…
Indian processed food manufacturers, especially small and medium companies, have been finding themselves in difficulty in the last two months over an extended shortage of glass bottles that has forced some of them to stop production. The shortage of glass bottles started in June and availability is now down by over 40% with at least three out of the six bottle manufacturers in the country not in production owing to various factors including labour trouble. While supplies of jams, sauces and pickles in glass bottles are still coming into the market from some of the manufacturers who had stocked up on bottles in anticipation of the shortage, the situation is expected to change in the next month or so as there is no improvement in bottle supplies. Industry watchers point out that the closures of Pondicherry and Nashik-based glass units of HN Glass for six months now, and that of Mahalaxmi Glass in Mumbai, have caused a major disruption in bottle supplies as the three companies processed 500 mt glass/daily. In addition, Alembic Glass Industries has not been in production for the last few months as it is undergoing furnace repairs. “We had to completely stop production of hot-filled products such as jams for a month and incurred substantial production losses because our order for bottles, placed in June, only came through at the end of August”, said Yadu Sankalia of Karen“s Gourmet Kitchen. The company is now looking at alternative packaging material in plastic for its products. Mapro Foods, the Panchgani, Maharashtra-based manufacturer of a range of branded jams, jellies, fruit squashes and syrups, is now thinking of shifting the packaging of its entire product range into PET bottles. While processed food manufacturers in the SME sector are now accusing the large players in the organized, branded segment of trying to corner all available supplies, the bottle manufacturers themselves point out that the former are in trouble largely because of the unplanned nature of their production planning and their tendency to depend on a single source for supplies. “Large companies typically give us an annual contract which we have to deliver no matter what the situation in the market and this is why they are not affected by the current situation”, one large bottle manufacturer said. An unintended victim of the bottle shortage is the community of lid manufacturers.