BLOG IN A BOTTLE

If you like to enjoy a hot drink on your journey to work in the morning, take a look at these stunning double-walled glass bottles. Aquaovo specifically thought of tea drinkers when developing their flask. Simply place your tea in the space under the lid, and add boiling water to the container. When you are ready for a fresh brew, just invert the bottle to mix the water with the tea leaves. Stylish, practical and brewed perfectly to your taste!

The double-wall of glass helps to insulate the liquids inside, keeping them warmer (or colder) for longer than containers made from other materials. The outer layer of glass stays at room temperature, ensuring the bottle is easy to hold and preventing condensation from forming. And as they are made of glass, the contents are not tainted by the packaging.

The bottles produced by Silodesign are designed more for the table. Cold drinks, hot sauces, or even soup can be stylishly served from these beautiful containers. And the contents will taste just as the chef intended!

Packaging which showcases a product’s sustainability credentials is more likely to attract the attention of consumers according to research from The Big Picture, a UK-based design research agency. The Big Picture found that shopper’s reject products with more rational designs, even if they do have the best environmental credentials.

Based on a series of in-depth interviews with consumers, the agency found that consumers judged products negatively if they perceived them as having unnecessary packaging or using materials which are not friendly to the environment. In these cases, consumers were not influenced by recycle-friendly logos or other claims on the packaging.

The research got us wondering what factors influence you when you are making a purchase decision? Is price or the packaging material more important? Do you read all of the environmental information on a label, or do you simply select products based on your perception of the packaging material? Let us know what you think by voting on the Friends of Glass Facebook page!

To celebrate the company’s 140^th anniversary, Dutch brewer Heineken has launched a global competition to find a new design for their iconic bottle. The winning design will symbolise how people around the world will connect in the next 140 years.

The competition requires you to design one half of a bottle. You then select a complimentary design from Heineken’s Facebook gallery to complete the other half. The best combination will be judged the winner and will feature in a limited edition gift pack which will be available from December in the 175 countries where Heineken is sold.

But you need to hurry as entries close on 31 January! Take a look at the video for more information and don’t forget to share your designs on the Friends of Glass Facebook page.

Beatson Clark, a UK-based producer of glass packaging solutions, has launched a new website which showcases the health and environmental benefits of glass. The site is a fantastic resource for anyone who wants to know more about how glass is produced and its environmental impact.

For Beatson Clark’s customers, the site showcases the glass bottle and jar solutions available. The company also offers a design service for clients who require glass packaging that will stand-out from the competition.

“Consumer demand for products packaged in glass is growing,” explains Charlotte Taylor, Marketing Manager for Beatson Clark. “With glass being 100% infinitely recyclable and totally inert, it is a healthy and sustainable product that helps to minimise the effect of packaging on the environment. We wanted our new website to illustrate these advantages so consumers and brand owners are more aware of just how remarkable glass is as a packaging form.”

One of the joys of the festive season is the array of yummy food that we get to try. But have you ever worried that your bin is as full as you are? UK website Love Food, Hate Waste estimates that 7.2 million tonnes of food are wasted each year in the UK alone. Reducing that to zero would save as much carbon dioxide as removing one in five cars off the country’s roads. The problem is so bad that the European Union’s Agriculture Committee has called on member countries to halve food waste by 2025.

One of the easiest things we can all do to reduce our food waste is to buy foodstuffs in glass. Why? Well firstly, glass containers are usually easy to reseal. You can just use as much as you need, refrigerating the leftovers until you need them. Glass is also impermeable to air, ensuring that any food you store in the glass container will be kept fresh for longer.

Websites such as Love Food, Hate Waste offer some fantastic tips for using up leftovers, especially at this time of the year. Why not try out their portion planner which makes an end to so much guesswork simply by suggesting how much to cook.  The True to Taste gallery on the Friends of Glass website also has lots of recipes you can try with leftovers. You can also submit your own suggestions via the Friends of Glass website or the True to Taste tab on our Facebook page.

French designer Christian Lacroix is probably best known for his stunning fashion creations. However, this Christmas, Lacroix is turning his eye to a more humble product – beer. Not just any beer of course. Lacroix has designed a festive glass bottle for Carlsberg’s premium Kronenbourg 1664.

According to Lacroix, the limited edition bottles represent refinement, magic and creativity. The graphics feature a stylised scene of Paris covered in snow. The image is printed on a sleeve which is placed over the bottle. Lacroix refers to the sleeve as the bottle’s ‘party clothes’.

We think the new clothes are going to see this beer invited to quite a lot of parties over the festive season. But be quick – the collector edition glass bottles are only available until the end of 2011!

“Anyone can do anything with a million dollars. Look at Disney. But it takes more than money to make something out of nothing, and look at the fun I have doing it,” Grandma Prisbrey.

Despite her hard life, it is easy to suspect that Tressa ‘Grandma’ Prisbrey must have been a lot of fun. In 1956, at the age of 60, Prisbrey began to construct a structure to house her collection of pencils in Simi Valley California. Made of glass bottles which she found at the local dump, the small building she constructed eventually housed more than 17,000 pencils.

That was just the beginning. Over the following three years Prisbrey constructed another 12 colourful bottle houses to contain her various collections (including one containing dolls’ heads). The result is now known as Grandma Prisbrey’s Bottle Village. Prisbrey continued constructing with empty bottles, adding walls, wishing wells, sculptures and planters.

Grandma Prisbrey was enormously proud of the Bottle Village and happily escorted visitors on tours. She also began to find recognition as an artist and her works featured in a number of exhibitions. The Village remained Grandma Prisbrey’s home until 1982, when at the age of 86 she moved to live with her daughter.

In the early 1980s, the Village was declared a Californian state landmark. However, in early 1994 the Village was struck by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake which caused serious damage. Despite being added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1996, funding for repairs has been limited and the future of the village remains uncertain. Yet it remains as a testament to the courage and willpower of an amazing lady who made something truly beautiful with nothing more than recycled glass.

If you’re around California over the holidays we recommend it as a must-see. Maybe you will hear Grandma Prisbrey whistling as the wind passes over the open bottles!

International food giant Nestlé has announced that their NaturNes baby food supplement will be offered to German consumers in glass containers once again. The switch comes just two years after Nestlé changed from glass to plastic.

In an article in the German food industry magazine Lebensmittel Zeitung (25 November 2011), Nestlé points out that their decision is part of an evaluation of the packaging concept for NaturNes. While the company has not announced plans to change the packaging in other countries, they do say that they will adapt to local demands.

European consumers are likely to demand glass according to a survey conducted by InSites in late 2010. Results showed that 14% of the consumers surveyed bought baby food in their household and glass was their preferred packaging material (14%) compared to other materials (3%). So hopefully we spot more glass containers in other countries very soon!  :-)

A new study from the US-based Harvard School of Public Health has shown that eating canned soup every day for five days can raise the level of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in your body by up to 1,221%. The study divided seventy-five volunteers into two groups, one of which ate canned vegetable soup for five days, while the other group consumed fresh vegetable soup.

While the research is concerning, the positive side is that the group who ate the fresh soup had significantly lower levels of BPA. As we have mentioned before – BPA is fairly easy to avoid. Use fresh or frozen foods where possible, and limit your use of plastics with food.

And make your own soup! It’s very easy to do and can take as little as an hour to prepare – check out this recipe for apple and squash soup that the kids will love. If you make a lot, freeze it until you want to use it. Just remember that pouring hot food into plastic or microwaving plastic containers can release BPA. You don’t want all your hard work ruined, so make sure you store and defrost your soup in glass containers. Unlike other packaging materials, glass is completely free of BPA.

Fresh soup can also be placed in a canning jar and refrigerated until needed. As long as the soup is hot and the jar is clean, the soup should last for a week. Just pop a jar in your bag and you have an instant soup to reheat in the microwave at work.

Jars also make the perfect containers for instant soup mixes which you can easily prepare at home. They even make eye-catching gifts – ideal for the holiday season. Here are some recipes for a curried lentil soup mix, a hearty instant beef or a fun alphabet soup to entertain the kids in the holidays.

If you have other recipes to share, why not add them to the Friends of Glass recipe book!

Whisky is a product that has strong associations with Scotland, glass and good living. Taking years to mature, the delicate honey-coloured elixir is normally packaged in a beautiful glass bottle and enjoyed from a cut-crystal glass. Right?

Not according to Panama-based company Scottish Spirits which believes that selling whisky in cans will help them tap into the outdoor beverage market. A very drunk outdoor market it seems as the company’s 350 ml (12 oz) cans of whisky contain the equivalent of eight standard drinks.

Unlike whisky bottles, the cans cannot be resealed, requiring the contents to be consumed in one sitting or shared with friends.  Many industry observers believe the move promotes a culture of binge drinking and question the quality of the scotch.

The Scottish Whisky Association is taking action to ban the cans for breaking labelling rules. Let’s hope they succeed for the sake of taste alone! Because let’s be honest: what can top a beautiful glass bottle of Scottish whisky that preserves all the flavours in its purest form? And then we haven’t discussed the added sense of class and style yet