How many 750 ml bottles fit in a 40 ft container? A worked example
Buyers ask this before they ask about price, because it decides the landed cost per piece. The honest answer is a number plus the assumptions behind it — here is one of our own, with the working shown.
The short answer
About 34,800 pieces in a 40 ft high cube. That figure is real, it comes off our own packing list, and it is useless to you until you know the four numbers it was built from.
Any supplier who gives you a piece count without giving you the carton dimensions is quoting from memory. Ask for the carton, and the number becomes something you can check and compare.
The four numbers it is built from
| Input | Value | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Export carton | 49 × 41 × 50.5 cm | Our standard 5-ply carton for this bottle |
| Pieces per carton | 58 pcs | Bottle plus lid, no colour box |
| Carton volume | 0.101 m³ | 0.49 × 0.41 × 0.505 |
| 40HQ internal | 1203 × 235 × 269.8 cm | Standard 40 ft high-cube shipping container |
Note the container line. A 40 ft high cube (40HQ) has an internal height of about 269.8 cm. A standard 40 ft (40GP) is roughly 239 cm — thirty centimetres shorter, which in this case is an entire layer of cartons.
The arithmetic, step by step
Cartons across the floor, lengthways: 1203 ÷ 49 = 24.5, so 24 cartons. The remaining 27 cm of length is dead space; nothing else fits in it.
Cartons across the width: 235 ÷ 41 = 5.7, so 5 cartons. Another 30 cm lost.
That gives 24 × 5 = 120 cartons per layer.
Layers up to the ceiling: 269.8 ÷ 50.5 = 5.3, so 5 layers.
120 × 5 = 600 cartons. 600 × 58 = 34,800 pieces.
The decimals are where the money goes. Every one of those divisions rounds down, because you cannot ship two thirds of a carton. Shaving 2 cm off the carton length in this example would let 25 cartons fit per row instead of 24 — a 4% freight saving that costs nothing to design in.
40HQ against 40GP
| 40GP (standard) | 40HQ (high cube) | |
|---|---|---|
| Internal height | ≈ 239 cm | ≈ 269.8 cm |
| Layers of cartons | 4 | 5 |
| Cartons loaded | 480 | 600 |
| Pieces loaded | 27,840 | 34,800 |
| Volume used | ≈ 48.7 m³ of 67.6 | ≈ 60.9 m³ of 76.3 |
A high cube costs a little more to book and carries 25% more of this product. For low-density goods like drinkware it is almost always the cheaper unit, and it is worth asking your forwarder to price both.
Volume runs out long before weight does
A 40HQ is rated for roughly 26 tonnes of payload. Those 34,800 bottles, cartons included, will weigh somewhere between six and eleven tonnes depending on wall thickness and whether the bottle is single-wall or insulated.
In other words you pay for the air inside the bottle. That single fact should drive your packaging decisions: on drinkware, cubic metres are the currency, not kilograms. The one number worth asking every supplier for is pieces per cubic metre, because it lets you compare two quotations whose cartons are different sizes.
Four things that shrink the number
- A tall sport or straw lid. Lid height is added to the bottle before the carton is designed, and a 3 cm flip-top can cost you a whole row of cartons.
- A colour box. Individual retail packaging typically costs 15–25% of the loading, because each box adds air around each bottle.
- Loose accessories — carabiners, mixing balls, straws, sleeves — which either go inside the bottle (free) or beside it (expensive).
- Palletising. Euro pallets make the goods easier to handle at the far end but typically cost 10–15% of the loaded quantity in a 40 ft container.
None of these are reasons not to do them. They are reasons to decide them before the mould is cut, when changing them is free.
What to ask, so you can compare quotes
- The export carton dimensions in centimetres, outer, not inner.
- Pieces per carton, and whether that count assumes a colour box.
- Pieces per cubic metre — the one figure that makes two quotes comparable.
- Gross weight per carton, so your forwarder can check the payload.
We put all four on every quotation before anyone asks. If a supplier will not give you the carton dimensions, you are not being quoted by the factory.
The wider question of how packaging drives freight cost — inner cartons, stacking, pallet choice — is covered in our article on cartons, pallets and container loading.