Any Interest in Printed Bottle Caps?

[ercol]

Morning,

Following an enquiry from a local brewery, i've discovered my print equipment can print on to bottle caps.



In addition to this i can do bottle labels, low quantities of pump clips and other related gubbins.

Before going ahead and setting up an online shop i wanted to gauge reaction/see if there was any interest from the community?

Starting with bottle caps we'd be looking at about £15.00 per 100, silver caps printed with any design. Cost includes artwork layout and postage.

Be interested to hear any feedback.

Thanks,

Sam

[chris2012]

I'd be interested in the bottle tops and labels.

Can you do fancy curved labels, like ovals etc?

[ercol]

Yep, cut to shape is no problem. I've been doing them for myself for a while for when giving away as gifts - i'll see if i can dig out some pics....

[Matt12398]

They look really good. The only thing that puts me off is the cost compared to unprinted ones.

[barneey]

I think for special occasion brews etc it would be a goer and a great product, but for every day bottling etc different colour caps do the job just fine.

[Andy]

They look great, as they guys mention for special, occasional brews then they'd finish things off nicely.

(BTW Sam asked Jim about posting the above and got the nod so all is well )

[simple one]

Yes! Been looking for an English company to do this for ages! I'll be getting in touch once I have a design.

[ercol]

Thanks for the feedback.

Sadly these aren't super cheap to produce and i can't compete with with the big boys who have big machines that churn them out (albeit with a minimum quantity order in the hundreds of thousands!) but i was thinking for specials/gifts/etc a little extra to make it stand out and look professional could make it viable.

In the event you want more (500+) let me know and i can calculate a price.

If im honest for my own drinking i'm still happy leaving the old labels on the bottles and hand-penning the caps for identification, but having given some homebrew away at Christmas with decent looking printed labels made me feel much better about 'gifting' - yes it should all be about whats inside, but those that previously looked suspiciously at my handwritten labels and noted bottle caps we're pretty grateful to receive something that looked like 'the real deal'. Even adding a bit to the price per bottle, being that it was homebrew it still made for some pretty cheap gifts....

[chris2012]

Could you do batches of say 40 odd labels? If so what would the prices roughly be.
As there doesn't seem to be any company aimed at lower quanties of nicely printed labels for beer in the UK, as far as I know.

[dean_wales]

They do look really great, a bit pricey though at 15p a bottle (plus postage??) as for a lot of us the bottle of beer wont have cost much more than 30p to produce!

How are you printing them / how durable are they? Can you do 29mm caps for the champagne bottles - that might make it more cost effective for us?

Good work. Also like to see some fancy curve cut bottle neck lables?

Dean.

[jaroporter]

pump clips?! are you telling me livingroompub is ago-go?

in all seriousness, i sometimes donate the odd barrel or so to a charity/cause to sell at a fundraiser. it'd be nice to really be able to go the whole way on presentation. y'know, information on the back of the beermats and all that..

in short, definitely could use such a service, maybe not super-regularly though..

[ercol]

Dean;

Postage included as well as necessary laying out/artwork where required and visual proofing (i'll send you a picture of the layout before printing to ensure its what you want). Turn around in about 7 days.

Durability - the caps themselves are from the main UK manufacturer so they're the same as you buy. Print durability... well i hit the one on the right in the image with a hammer... its a commercial machine used for permanently printing all sorts of things so durability is generally v.good. If you take knife to it and try to scrape the print off then i'm not going say you wont be able to - but that applies to pretty much everything i can think of thats been surface printed. I will however test some this evening capping/uncapping and in videne solution and let you know the outcome (its bottling night anyway!)

Champagne bottle caps - no reason why not, although i've never come across them myself.... will report back.

I dont think labels will look that effective not on the bottles so it'll have to wait til i get home i'm afraid (no booze at work, sigh) but will post a couple of images this eve.

Sam

[bigdave]

I may be interested on a more on commercial basis. Would be interesting to see samples and an idea of your setup.

[ercol]

Pictures of printed labels as promised;

Hever Honey;



1914AK;



And my standard reverse label 'warning' the uninitiated about yeast at the bottom of the bottle (pretty useful when giving as gifts...)



These are all on smaller bottles because its what i had.... but am putting together a price for runs of 40 x Labels for 'standard' 500ml brown bottles. Will post back later.

Sam

[Fil]

Very good stuff, whats the smallest number of caps its cost effective to print?
im thinking as its only a few bottles from a batch that are generally gifted sets of 5 caps and lables for a pound(if enough profit involved) may be a cheap enough point to entice regular bottlers to add a pound to the brew cost and gift off 5 smart looking bottles as a regular thing, and the fact i bottle only 5 or 6 per batch kegging the majority.. Has nothing to do with the suggestion

Oh yes and throw in a free clip badge with every order too hehe