WWII Era Rations

Recently, a WWII era preserving bottle ("Einkochflasche") came into my collection. It's not that I'm an avid collector, but it piqued my curiosity, and with 900 mL volume, it seems to be a pretty usable size. Weighing in at 519 g without lid,  the container is rather thick-walled and heavy, which feels nice. The texture is reminiscent of a lime fruit and the bottom stamping is pretty rough, while the inside is smooth. These days, such containers are produced in a two-step process starting from a pressed glass preform which is then blow-molded to its final volume. I imagine that not much has changed in the production process since then, but it does make you wonder whether they had issues with the mold insert. During the war, they might also have preferred to conserve energy and not reject a batch of bottles for cosmetic defects.

Here are a few shots from the top and bottom features:

There are some rusty, calcified crusts on the neck. The neck has a groove but no threading. With an ID of 56-57 mm and an OD of about 66 mm, it looks quite a lot like the 60 RR Weck lids should fit:

The whole container set also includes a metal spring or clip ("Einkochbügel") and a rubber ring. The rust pattern, especially on the sealing face on the top makes me wonder whether that is historically accurate in this case. With ordinary tolerances for pressed parts, One might also question whether < 1 mm is enough tolerance to begin with. Other WECK containers have a rather loose fit even today with better machinery and process control. Matching lids would have to have e.g. 54 mm diameter to fit into the nominally 56 mm bore.

As chance would have it, an auction titled "Normal-Konserve-900-ml-Bodenfund-Wehrmacht-verschlossen" (only cached preview available, auction has since vanished) depicts what looks like a crimped metal lid used in conjunction with this type of bottle:

On the other hand, contemporary specimens from another auction do show, in this case an INKO brand, a glass lid and metal clip (which may have been used for the cooking step only):

ps.: I found a cheap set of WECK RR 60 lids, and indeed they fit just fine.

Good Things Come In Reusable Packages

To give some context: in Germany alone, over 4 million tons of glass containers were produced in 2020. At the same time, bulk food stores targeting environmentally conscious customers were struggling or went out of business during the Covid-19 pandemic. I personally have reservations when it comes to the hygiene aspect of open bulk food and self-service, yet I find that there is a need to explore reusable food containers in the same way it works for beverages.

As it stands, there are only a few brands (like Ehrmann, which are however criticized for other practices), that field reusable food containers (basically like the container shown below on the right), yet there are non-returnable, reusable food containers in the market as well. As an example, let's wrap up the glass situation with the coconut oil jar on the left:

Can We Have Nice Things?

There are many shelf-stable products offered today which come in single use glass containers, and that makes me wonder: why isn't there a standard container for spices, a standard container for pickled foods, or more valuable dry goods like nuts, seeds, lentils, beans, dried berries? Larger containers could be a bit more blocky and pack well in euro containers for easy and space-efficient transportation and storage.

An overarching technical topic might be making good lids. The glass sealing surfaces can be automatically inspected before refilling, but lids will likely still need to be disposable, or at least the sealing inserts / foils will need to be.

One can even imagine standardizing food containers for bulk food stores that offer pre-weighed quantities in returnable glass containers with lids that have labels on the lid that reset when heated to autoclave sterilization temperatures.

As for Germany, I cannot help but think that we killed returnable non-beverage glass containers the only way we know how: with bureaucracy.

Update 2024-05: A Pooled Packaging Revival?

In a recent Guardian article the German Mach Mehrweg Pool e.V. is mentioned as one of the examples for a working pooled return scheme.

"Mach Mehrweg Pool e.V. (make reuse pool), founded as Milch-Mehrweg-Pool e.V. (reuse pool "milk"), was re-established in September 2022. It comprises currently 21 member companies actively promoting and managing the MMP reuse pool, which includes milk and cream bottles, yogurt and cream jars as well as their transport crates."

Don't worry about the limited number of containers depicted above. Bringing back the pool infrastructure after decades of single use container dominance is no easy feat. On their website, one can tell that they are eyeing other products as well: grains, nuts, seeds, jam.

Unlike plastic packaging, glass jars with metal lids are also suitable for controlled atmosphere (CO2, N2) packaging to extend the shelf life of some foods. Not saying we should put rice in glass jars, but there certainly has been some excess of food wastage following the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I don't think I would mind buying dried lentils, peas, beans and rice in glass containers filled with CO2 or N2, ensuring no critters can get to them and nothing has to be thrown out later on.