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letting the cooling process take place
as quickly as possible. That's the basis
for making a good bottle.'
The high speed at which bottles
leave the glass-making machine is
therefore due to the technical know-
how of Vereenigde Glasfabrieken,
know-how that many a colleague
glass-maker is jealous of. But more
about that later.
Tensions
Although the temperature on the
outside of the bottles has been re-
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duced to 300 degrees Celsius after
leaving the glass-making machine,
they are still literally red-hot. The
inside of the bottles is warmer and
softer than the outside. If they were
allowed to cool off further naturally,
internal tensions might be created
and in due course these might make
the bottle burst, with all sorts of nasty
consequences.
The glass industry has also found a
solution for this problem. The glass is
heated up again to about 550 degrees
Celsius and then brought down to
room temperature in a cooling oven
during a period of forty minutes.
Checks
And then each bottle is submitted
to an exhaustive series of checks,
checks and further checks. Packaging
glass is continuously checked on at
least fifteen different aspects.
Sophisticated electronic equipment
measures the shape and thickness of
the glass, inspects the crown rims for
imperfections (accurately to a hun
dredth of a millimetre), examines for
cracks, the correct dimensions, etc.
After all these intensive checks
(including random measurements
made by factory personnel as well as a
Heineken employee) the bottles are
mechanically stacked layer by layer
onto a pallet and enveloped in shrink-
wrap plastic. The bottles are ready for
shipment to Heineken.
Image
A stylish bottle contributes to the
image of a brand. 'You see, that's the
unique thing about glass. From the
shape of the bottle you can see from a
distance which product or type of
product is in it. The shape of wine
bottles from France is determined by
their region of origin. You can see
THE WOULD OF HEINEKEN
