e bye, Stubby
After many decades the era of the stubby, that
compact but not very premium-looking bottle, has
now come to a definitive end. Within all export
sections the stubby has now made way for the KB
33 bottle.
In the final week of February the
bottling line at the brewery in Den
Bosch was converted for the last
time to the stubby format. The little
bottle was filled for the last time and
during the months of March and April
it disappeared for good from the
Heineken range.
Because of efficiency reasons the
brewery in Den Bosch is pleased with
this decision. A narrowing of the
range automatically leads to im
proved productivity and cost savings,
since there is no longer any need for
time-consuming conversion of the
bottling machines.
Loyal
Duty Free was the department which
stayed loyal to the stubby right to the
very end. There was a time when the
stubby was the preferred export bot
tle, particularly in the Caribbean. The
stubby's popularity was not sur
prising. Because of its compact shape
and low weight the bottle was cheap
er to transport than the long neck
bottle.
But economic aspects cannot always
be given top priority. The stubby,
however handy it may have been to
transport, did not fit in with the pre
mium image that Heineken is seek
ing. Over the years, therefore, the
stubby was gradually replaced by the
long neck bottle. A number of
sections within Duty Free had also
changed over to the long neck bottle
as time progressed. The only section
within Duty Free where the stubby
lived on was in shipping. In particu
lar, shipping lines and ship chandlers
in Europe and the United States were
very fond of the stubby. In the case of
ship chandlers elsewhere in the world
canned beer increased in popularity
and the stubby gradually disappeared
from the range.
Preference
"Duty Free, just like all other
export departments, wants to contri
bute to the premium image of
Heineken and decided to replace the
stubby by the EB 53. At the same time
Duty Free is responding to market
developments: the consumer was also
showing an increasing preference for
the long neck bottle. It should also be
remembered that, because of advan
ces in the glass-making industry, the
weight of today's long neck bottle
hardly differs from that of the stubby",
explains Ton Muyres, head of
Heineken Duty Free.
An extensive mailing to all ship
chandlers and shipping lines and pro
motions in the ports has been used to
announce the switch-over from stub
by to EB 33. According to Muyres,
customers responded positively to the
change in the range, one of the
reasons being the perceived trend
amongst consumers to favour the
long neck bottle.
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