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Bottling recommendations sought

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  • Bottling recommendations sought

    Trying to do some business planning, and would like to hear people's thoughts. Planned maximum volume of the brewery is about 3000 bottles per day, mainly reusable 250 ml swingtops and reusable 500 ml swingtops. (http://www.systempack.de/e-swingtop-...catalogue.html shows where I am leaning, with the .20L Maurer for the small bottle and the .50L Maurer for the large). Market preference is strongly in favor of .25L bottles here, with three of the top four brands selling in .25L and the fourth selling in .275L). I expect to bottle 3 smalls for every large. There is a market among the Dutch and American tourists for "full size" bottles of beer. Swingtops are viewed as being more environmentally sound than bottle-caps, and on our island, being viewed as environmentally conscious is a big plus.

    Full-wrap shrink labels designed to handle the deposit/reuse cycle seem to be the best bet: I don't like the limitations of ACL, and don't want to re-apply labels every refill.

    Next variable: bottling labor costs about $5USD/hour, including health insurance, unemployment, orphan and widow's fund, etc. Within reason, the government would prefer me to operate manually: not only are fully automatic lines expensive, they keep me from hiring Bonaireans to fill bottles. If I don't hire Bonaireans to do things, the government has no incentive to issue me business permits, which makes the whole issue of economics kind of moot.

    Given that set of requirements, who should I be talking to about bottling equipment, and what kind of bottling equipment should I be thinking about buying?
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