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All Containers›Shop by use case›Syrups›Bottles and closures›Bottle sizes, and what each one is forShop all syrups →
Bottles and closures

Bottle sizes, and what each one is for

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Syrup sells in a wider spread of sizes than most preserved foods, because the same product is a gift, a pantry staple and a commodity depending on how much of it is in the container.

The small end

Around 100 to 150 ml is a gift and sampler size. It carries the highest price per unit volume by a wide margin, it is what sells at a market stall to somebody who does not want to carry a heavy bottle, and it is the format most likely to be bought on presentation rather than on price.

The retail middle

Roughly 200 to 475 ml is the pantry purchase and the shelf format. This is where most retail syrup lives and where the competition is, and it is the size a buyer compares against a supermarket product whether or not that comparison is fair.

The bulk end, which is a different business

Quart and gallon formats are a commodity sale: to a restaurant, to a bakery, or at the farm gate by volume. Margin per unit is far lower and the packaging is a jug rather than a presentation bottle. Our shelf for pourable food tops out at about 473 ml, so that format is not on it.

Decide which business before the label

Net quantity is a required label element and it comes from the bottle and the fill, so a size change is a label change. More than that, the three sizes above are sold to different people in different places, and pricing one as though it were another is the most common mistake in this category.

The panel has to fit the label

A tall narrow bottle has less usable panel than its volume suggests, and a graded maple label carries a grade statement and a color class on top of the usual required elements. Settle the bottle before the artwork.

References

United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service. United States Standards for Grades of Maple Sirup (Syrup), adopted January 29, 2015 and effective March 15, 2015. Grade A is “not less than 66.0 nor more than 68.9 percent solids content by weight (Brix)” in four color classes measured as percent light transmittance. ams.usda.gov
21 CFR 168.180, Table sirup: not less than 65 percent soluble sweetener solids by weight, with the naming and blending rules for pancake and waffle syrups. law.cornell.edu
Written from federal regulation, a state maple regulation and published extension guidance, not from a laboratory. The density figures quoted are standards of identity and grade, and your state may set its own above them. Anything here is a starting point for a conversation with your state department of agriculture, not a determination that you comply.