I have a unique hot sauce blend and I want the bottled packaging to be as equally unique. I have seen numerous bottle types, but I want the one that is right for my hot sauce. I have also taken careful consideration into the cost and appearance, because I want marketing to play a role as well.
The best bottle type for your hot sauce is the 5 oz or 10 oz woozy bottle. This bottle type is easily recognizable as a hot sauce product. These bottles are available through many merchandisers and are generally the most inexpensive bottle type for hot sauce.
Walk down the condiment isle of your local market or grocery store and you will see many different styles of packaging. Many types of sauces have a signature style to them, and many hot sauces will also appear to have similar bottle shapes to them. This makes the product easily recognizable as being within that category of condiments.
The gourmet or artisan hot sauces have recently involved unique bottle designs. Although there are some specific reasons for some bottle types, marketing is primary the reason for bottles that stand out among others.
Imagine walking down the same isle in your local store and seeing a bottle in the shape of a person’s torso. Would that draw your attention? Of course the product label is also an important part of a marketing campaign. Oh…Wait…did we forget flavor?
As a beginning hot sauce entrepreneur entering the hot sauce business the cost of producing, manufacturing and packaging a sauce for sale can guide your decisions for many things. Packaging of a hot sauce will already be one of the larger expenses so take careful consideration into upfront cost when choosing a bottle style.
BOTTLE STYLES
Woozy
Definitely the most popular and readily available shape for a hot sauce is the woozy. Wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, it is used for most hot sauce types, especially those entering the business. Like many bottles available these typically come in many sizes as well.
The cap on this type has a built in flip top with a dripper or reducer but those can also be purchased separately. A dripper may not work for thicker sauces.
5 ounce woozy
I use this bottle type a lot for “at home” recipes but it can certainly be stored and distributed as a mass merchandise. This size bottle is super easy to store and will cost less than larger size bottles or custom shapes for your hot sauce.
If you are experimenting with hot sauce recipes, are new to the business and have a limited budget or are an amateur hot sauce maker…than this is the bottle type you will want. These are great as gifts, family gatherings or your own personal use. This is the best price from Amazon (at the time of this article). Purchase a case of 24 here!
The Glass Bottle Outlet has great prices on 5 oz woozy bottles with quantities available up to 192 pieces. These bottles also include the cap and reducer for a complete set up ready to package. Shipping is calculated at check out. They also have the 8 oz clear Boston Round.
10 – 12 ounce woozy
Same bottle shape as the 5 ounce but bigger. This is the most widely used bottle type for someone entering the hot sauce business. It either distinguishes your product as being a hot sauce or makes it blend in with the others.
Obviously the larger woozy will cost more than the 5 oz but here is the best price on Amazon for a case of 12. Get the 12 oz case of 12 through this link. Think BIG and get a case of 48-12 oz bottles for 25% less per bottle. Get em here! from Amazon.
10 ounce wide mouth
This type of bottle is great for a thicker sauce. Often used for a salad dressing these types of bottles are also used for a hot sauce products on the shelves of shops and many online stores also.
Mini woozy
The mini woozy is the perfect bottle type for a promotional event or a free give away. They provide enough sample of your sauce to get someone’s taste buds tingling and are easy to carry through events or festivals. Viveplex has a 10ml glass bottle perfect for filling at home and giving away to friends.
Swing top glass
A swing top glass bottle has a rubber stopper attached to the top of the bottle for easy re sealing. I use a bottle type like this for many of my new hot sauce recipes. These also come in many different shapes and sizes but will cost more than a woozy.
A swing top bottle will be more expensive due to the design and manufacture of the top. There bottles also come in different shapes, sizes and colors. Follow these links to Amazon to get the 4.25 oz, the 8.5 oz and the 16 oz swing top bottles.
Beer bottle
This is generally not a bottle type that is used for a hot sauce too often. If your sauce has some assimilation to beer or beer products that this would be great for your product. Perhaps you have paired your sauce with a specific type of beer, and it is part of your marketing campaign.
Habanero Homebrew Hot Sauce by Torched Products bottles their product in 12 oz amber beer bottles. They have a variety of sauces all packed in the same bottle.
Glass stout
Also used for beer but I have seen quite a few varieties of sauce use this bottle type. It signifies a big, beefy thick sauce full of flavor. These containers have the short neck with a wide mouth for easy pour-ability of a thick sauce.Get a case of 12 glass stout bottles by Northern Mountain Supply from Amazon through this link.
Jelly jars
Large mouth bottles or jars are great for a thicker sauce, paste or relish. These jars are called “Mason Jars” and have many uses outside of the kitchen. Not as recognizable as a woozy bottle for containing hot sauce but they do come in many different sizes. These jars are more expensive than a traditional hot sauce bottle.
Syrup style containers
This bottle type is distinct shape for containing syrups and is representative of a sauce being sweet. Also, this bottle shape can give the impression that the sauce is coming from a specific region of the US like Vermont or upstate NY.
Often having a handle on one side, this type of bottle will get a little more expensive than a standard woozy but has a distinct shape to make it stand out. If your sauce contains maple syrup a shape like this will really represent your sauce. Read Do You Know About These 7 Things Sugar Does To Hot Sauce?Another product from Northern Mountain Supply! Get these bottles here from Amazon.
Jugs
Obviously, this is going to be for a large amount of sauce. Don’t package a new sauce recipe in gallon jugs without first using a test market. Like the syrup style bottle these may also have a handle and will sometimes be bigger for larger quantities of sauce. Again, a bottle similar to a jug style will increase costs.
One gallon glass jugs are great for storing hot sauce that you are going to put into smaller woozy bottles. Many successful hot sauce companies like Franks RedHot and Truff have products available in One Gallon Jugs.
Ketchup Bottle
Some successful producers of hot sauce use this bottle type for their sauce. A shape like this is recognizable as a restaurant condiment so it may need labeling that stands out to make it unique among ketchup and mustard.
A squeeze bottle will be made of plastic so that the consumer can squeeze out the product and they will generally be much cheaper than glass bottles. Some extremely hot sauces or sauces with a high acidic content may affect the quality of the plastic.
Also, plastic containers will need a different packaging technique aside from the hot and fill method. The high temperatures needed for the sauce to pasturize could melt some plastics. I make a super mild jalapeno that works great with Plastic Ketchup Bottles.
Carafe
A carafe is an open topped glass container with a wide opening typical for serving wine or water. This would be a great container for a gourmet sauce or a sauce with wine in it. A container like this would need a secure cap for distribution but your sauce would stand out as being a sophisticated blend of ingredients.
Milk Bottle
Like many of the bottle shapes in this article the bottle type may want to reflect what is in the recipe. Another distinct shape of a beverage is a milk bottle. These wide mouth bottles also come in many different sizes.
Flask
Reminiscent of a whisky bottle the flask offers a unique shape for a sauce. If your sauce contains whisky or some other form of alcohol than I want some…and this bottle type might be appropriate for packaging. There are many bottle sizes available also.
Custom Bottles
Larger manufacturers can afford the expense of having custom bottles produced to make their hot sauce instantly recognizable. Sometimes it is something as simple as the green top on a clear plastic bottle filled with red sauce and does not need to cost thousands of dollars.
The possibilities for custom bottle types are endless. Some manufacturers may have stock type bottles whereas others will require a custom mold to make a specific shape and this can get very expensive.
| Vetropack | Lots of unique bottle designs in their catalog of over 800 products. Click here for contact info. Custom products available also. | vetropack.com |
| Burch Bottle & Packaging | Custom designs available as well as a nice stock collection. Large minimum orders. Contact Burch here. | burchbottle.com |
| MJS Packaging | Another great collection of pre-designed glass bottles with some customization available. Full customization here. Contact MJS. | mjspackaging.com |
| Rockwood & Hines Glass Group | Super cool glass specialty collection. Custom made glass bottles available with cost around $3,800. Contact Rockwood here. | rockwoodglass.com |
| The Cary Company | Very sophisticated bottle design process with custom bottle molds over $10,000. Contact them here. | thecarycompany.com |
| VOA Glass Bottle Supplier | Custom creations and a catalog of standard products too. Contact and request a quote here. | voaglassbottles.com |
| Hualian Glass Bottle | Custom bottles designs and decoration. Awesome show case of designs here. Contact Hualian here. | glassbottledesign.com |
Promotional sale
Custom bottles or packaging with an odd shape can be used as a limited promotion for your hot sauce sales. Also this is a great way to play around with different bottle styles to see how your sauce pours out of the bottle, how it looks in different colored bottles or how it attracts a customer.
Sample
Sample bottles or mini bottles are also great for promotional sales or a giveaway. These can be found in 1 ounce to 2 ounces sizes but can be just as expensive as a larger size bottle. These bottle types can often have a cork top but I have not completed the research on what cork does to a hot sauce.
Some mini samples bottles with cork tops can cost as little as $0.08 each. Bottles like this may not have a secure top and they may be representative of a specific type of product.
Save costs on bottles
If you are a starting a hot sauce business, you are probably keeping track of startup costs. However, you will want something that is unique in design as part of you marketing campaign so put some research into finding the right distributor and remember that buying large quantities will be less expensive.
Buying large quantities
Buy larger quantities of a product will make the individual cost of each unit become less. This is called Economies of Scale and it is applied to many aspects of business. Purchasing a case of bottles at a time, because you are on a limited budget will increase your total costs by the end of the year, as opposed to buying more at one time at a reduced cost.
For example:
If you are making and selling 4 cases of hot sauce a month (1,152 bottles a year) with each case containing 24 bottles at $1.00 each that equals $96.00 a month…on bottles alone! Multiply that by 12 months and you are spending $1,152 a year on bottles. This figure can be greatly diminished by buying large quantities.
Sites like Alibab have merchandise available at much less but you have to purchase in large quantities or in minimum quantities. Woozy bottles from Xuzhou Huajing Glass Products, through Alibaba, can be purchased at a minimum of 1,000 bottles for as low as $0.35 a bottle*! Buy samples first to verify quality. This pricing is much less expensive with the amount of product that is purchases. *pricing at the time of this article
Our example above:
Instead of spending $1,152 on bottles per year that figure can be greatly reduced by more than 30% by purchasing 1,000 bottles at a time. This makes the cost of bottles per year only $350.00 instead of $1,152. This cost does not include shipping.
Whatever bottle type you choose for your hot sauce…make sure you have great sauce to go inside. The packaging of a product can make a difference but it’s what is inside that counts. Stick with one type of bottle and continue to find ways to decrease the cost.
