Before shipment, Verallia’s meticulous inspection process involves precise control of corking, pressure resistance (especially for sparkling beverages), dimensions, glass thickness, and aesthetics using advanced equipment. Each bottle and jar undergoes thorough checking before being palletized with reusable or recyclable materials and securely covered for protection. Verallia’s equipment ensures consistent quality across a diverse range of items, from 30 milliliters to 15 liters.

Manufacturing glass involves a rigorous industrial process aimed at enhancing a material with exceptional properties. Each stage of production is scrutinized to minimize the carbon impact, ensuring sustainability throughout the manufacturing process.

Glass manufacturing entails a meticulous industrial process aimed at enhancing a material with exceptional properties. Each production stage undergoes rigorous scrutiny to minimize the carbon footprint, ensuring sustainability throughout the manufacturing process.

Verallia Iberia prioritizes sustainability by using cullet—recycled glass from manufacturing waste, selective collection, or recycling containers—to produce new glass packaging. This approach conserves raw materials and reduces energy consumption. Cullet is blended with other essential ingredients: 71% sand, 14% soda ash, 11% limestone, and 4% various constituents for glass coloring. In 2023, 54.1% of their production incorporated external cullet, reinforcing the commitment to environmental responsibility.

Glass manufacturing involves heating a mixture of solid raw materials—including cullet, sand, soda ash, and calcium carbonate—to 1,550°C in furnaces for approximately 24 hours. This process ensures the molten glass achieves perfect homogeneity before flowing through distribution channels to forming machines with glass molds. Verallia furnaces operate with 84% gas, 10% fuel oil, and 6% electricity in the melting section, optimizing efficiency and sustainability in our operations.

Glass is shaped through a meticulous process involving two stages: first in the blank mold, then in the finishing mold, where it is blown to achieve its final design. Glass bottles and jars emerge from the machines at temperatures exceeding 500°C. Some production lines, known as "flex lines," utilize versatile machines capable of producing up to three different types of items simultaneously, enhancing production efficiency and flexibility.

The annealing arch plays a crucial role in glass manufacturing by relieving internal stresses within the glass. This tunnel furnace ensures maximum solidity for glass containers, which also undergo scratch-resistant treatment upon exiting the arch. Several of Verallia’s facilities feature systems that recover waste heat from the annealing process to efficiently heat our buildings and provide domestic hot water, further enhancing our sustainability efforts.

Verallia’s internal recycling circuit plays a vital role in reducing our environmental footprint. Most of our plants recycle all cullet from their own production and accept used cullet from external sources whenever feasible. They have invested in 8 cullet processing centers where recycled glass undergoes sorting, purification, and crushing to produce clean cullet ready for new glass production. Furthermore, they actively support the European initiative "Close the Glass Loop," which targets a 90% glass collection rate by 2030, reinforcing the commitment to sustainable practices.

The very nature of glass, as a material, makes stability its main characteristic. This physical and chemical stability means that glass packaging does not degrade and therefore has no expiry date. In addition, in the case of wine, packaging is part of the evolution process, making it possible to improve over time.

When glass packaging is subject to high temperatures, high relative humidity and sudden changes in temperature and humidity, it may suffer a superficial hydrolytic attack (appearance of whitish areas that are eliminated by washing). Although this does not affect food safety, we recommend this fact is taken into consideration.

Covered storage is recommended, in particular in case of storage for an extended period of time. Where possible, the storage site should be a clean place away from any source of contamination (insects, chemicals, etc.). This will be observed afterwards when the rinsing of the bottles will be recommended. The floor should be flat and hard (e.g. concrete).