One of the major barriers that glass containers have to confront nowadays is the existence of substitute products on the market. The characteristics of the most appreciated containers are related to their capacity to preserve their contents, the guarantee of quality of these contents, the image that is afforded to the product contained, the information the containers provide to the consumer, their environmental friendliness, price, weight, ease of packaging/bottling, reutilization or recycling, their ease of handling in transport or the value they are afforded by the customer. To ascertain whether opinions with respect to all these factors vary between the Belgian and Spanish industries, a single factor analysis of
variance was carried out (Table 5). It can be seen that significant differences exist between the two countries for four of the characteristics considered (guarantee of quality of the contents, information afforded to the consumer who acquires the product, price and ease of handling in transport). As can also be seen in Table 5, the capacity to maintain the
quality of the contents and the information that is given to the customer are thus seen as more advantageous qualities by Spanish packagers/bottlers. In contrast, price and ease of