History of bottling technology

Around 1500 BC, the Egyptians were the first to create glass bottles by placing molten glass around a core of sand and clay. After this process was completed, the core was removed and the glass cooled.

The earliest bottle and glass making factory in the United States was established in Virginia in 1608.

The technique of carbonation was discovered by Dr Joseph Priestly in the late 1760s, a technique which turned out to be the spur to the creation of commercially manufactured soft drinks.

The glass bottle had begun to replace stoneware to contain wine and beer around the middle of the seventeenth century. The earliest wine bottles were curiously bulbous in shape but as the practice grew of ‘laying down’ wine, the bottles had to take on their familial parallel-side form by about 1750.

Glass bottling technology came of age in the early 1900s with the development of glassblowing machines. In 1891, Michael J. Owens patented a machine that automatically opened and closed the glass molds used to form bottles.

Bottling technology (including washing, filling, and capping) remained a manual operation in the late 19th century.

The carbonated drink bottling industry in the United States increased from 100 plants in the 1850s to more than 1400 by 1890. In 1915 the first soda pop bottle was introduce by the Coca-Cola Company. A unique shape of a bottle was followed by several other brands.

The first plastic bottle for carbonated beverages was brought forth by Andrew Wyth through the Du Pont Corporation.

Advances in battling technology during the late 19th century largely involved the slow shifts from hand and foot operated machines to power-operated machines. The 1892 patent of the crown cap closure was another important development for beer and soda bottlers.
History of bottling technology