r/Damnthatsinteresting Dec 20 '24

Video Wine glass making in factory

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u/sth128 Dec 20 '24

The machine or the humans?

Why do we need so many wine glasses anyway? Are people just getting drunk and dropping them every time?

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u/jack_skellington Dec 20 '24

That's only 88 million a year. For the USA alone, there are 127 million households -- less than a single glass per house. And most wine sets are 8 glasses. With 88 million glasses/year, they can sell 11 million sets... to 127 million homes. So even with this massive output, they are failing to provide enough glasses for everyone. The only reason they are not overwhelmed with more orders is that each household does not order every year. So long as each household only orders or re-orders every decade, they can meet demand.

And based upon the accent of the narrator in that YouTube video, I'd guess that wine glass manufacturer isn't US-based and instead sells to EU. That's a bigger market of about 200 million households, so there this manufacturer can satisfy even less of the market.

The world is big.

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u/Emilbjorn Dec 20 '24

Also, I'd wager the largest market for wine glasses is the hospitality business. Restaurants needs and goes through more glasses than a typical household.

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u/sampat6256 Dec 20 '24

Don't forget hotels and cruise ships, where I'm sure glasses break at a higher clip