Sklárny Moravia: Bottles from the heart of Europe

Sklárny Moravia Glassworks: exclusive bottles from the heart of Europe

By Sklárny Moravia

The Czech company Sklárny Moravia has established itself on the market with a unique offer: it can produce small series of very sophisticated bottles. These are ideal for smaller distilleries or limited editions of multinational giants. Now the company is reaching out to customers in the UK.

sobrno is a small village in a valley in the CzechMoravian Highlands. For almost two centuries, its people have been united by a glassmaking tradition that dates back to 1827. In recent times, the local independent familyrun glassworks has established itself as a producer of premium bottles with a large proportion of manual labour. The combination of automated machines and the skills of the Úsobrno glassmakers allows the company to offer its clients exceptional both flexibility and affordable prices. “We have furnaces for 45 and 22 tons of glass. We are the one of the smallest manufacturers in the world who makes container glass with such small furnaces,” says Radim Bondy, Sales Director. The bottles are produced by two automated machines, each with six single gob stations with variable-weight feeder. Although they do not handle the same volumes as their high-volume counterparts, they allow for a much greater variability and more complex product shapes. The moulds can be assembled like a jigsaw. Customers can choose different neck shapes according to the caps or add embossing to already finished bottle designs or experiment with the colour.

Typical orders are batches of 10,000 to 100,000 pieces. The capacity is approx. 25,000–30,000 bottles per day on each line, which is roughly the capacity of a truckload or shipping container and corresponds in number to limited editions of premium alcohol. In the so-called parallel production, the company is able to produce even smaller batches of bottles down to 5,000. Therefore, Sklárny Moravia glassworks is also a perfect partner for start-ups. It has already assisted in launching several distilleries which tried out the packaging in smaller batches and then moved on to large producers. The company management is happy with this approach. Rather than aiming to produce millions of bottles a year, they are interested in special projects.

Another unique feature in the glass-making world is the range of coloured glass. Apart from Sklárny Moravia, very few other European companies are able to produce pitch-black opaque glass. Úsobrno glassworks also produces special violet glass for a Dutch customer.

“We have retained the production of apothecary jars, the classic ground reagent bottles that you may remember from old pharmacies. One of our British clients has had their caps modified and is bottling gin in them,” says Bondy, smiling.

Global companies like St Dalfour or Pernod Ricard are among the customers buying the limited

editions. Moravia’s master glassmakers can handle almost any form or shape, with 80% of production based on clientsupplied designs. The company has over 100 types of shapes in its permanent portfolio. These are intended for further modification as semi-finished products, where modifications can be placed according to customer needs, including various embossed logos, inscriptions and forms. Úsobrno designers can also come up with brand-new designs exactly according to the client’s requirements.

“The advantage of working with small glassworks is the enormous flexibility in producing premium packaging exactly to our wishes,” summarises David Kaiserlich of Albert Michler Distillery. Milan Metelka of the family-owned Czech distillery of the same name has a similar experience. “Sklárny Moravia helped us with a bottle that had been refused elsewhere by glassworks claiming it was impossible to make,” recalls Mr Metelka.

In Úsobrno, they look forward to similar challenges. “We enjoy complex jobs, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to do them. Luxury packaging glass is a highly creative and production-intensive product, essentially a small work of art. Such a bottle gives a unique image to quality alcohol, it sets it apart from the competition and underlines its uniqueness. We make non-standard bottles by taking a standard round bottle and customizing it completely,” explains Bondy.

Craftsmanship, integrity, tradition and emphasis on carbon footprint reduction are reflected in all areas of the company’s operations. Glassmaking sand is sourced from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, soda is sourced as a waste product from the pulp mill in Paskov, and pallets are also local and 100% recyclable. The production of the glass itself is environmentally friendly, with recycled product recovery rates of up to 75%, depending on the colour of the glass.

In recent years, Úsobrno glassworks has invested in technological equipment. Thanks to a new filtration system, it has reduced the production of dust, sulfur and nitrogen oxides while it has also purchased new inspection machines to improve quality. In June 2021, the company started up ‘Anna’ – a small furnace (22 t/day) – after an overhaul that extended its lifetime by another six years.

The glassworks is now trying to spread awareness of its existence and unique production, ie that it is possible to make bottles in very small series and customized to order. This is why the company is also targeting the UK.

“The UK is a very interesting market for us and I believe we have something special to offer local distillers. The Czech glassmaking tradition is famous: our glassmakers sell crystal chandeliers to Arab sheikhs, glass cutting is taught here to students from as far away as Japan, and our glass jewelry is world famous. We know how to design bottles for the finest whiskeys and gins, and we have been making them for years. We are doing something that the big glass houses cannot offer and often say cannot be done at all. But with us, it can be done!”, concludes Bondy.

CONTACT SKLÁRNY MORAVIA, a.s. Úsobrno 79 679 39 Úsobrno Czech Republic +420 516 427 711 info@sklomoravia.com www.sklomoravia.com