Longhorn Glass restarts production after $40M upgrade

The company's main customer is the Houston brewery of St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch.



The Houston-based glass plant now has one of the fastest glass-forming machines in the world, the company said in a press release. The overhaul allows Longhorn to increase production to 700 bottles per minute from 600 bottles per minute on one of its lines.



That translates into a maximum capacity of 17 million bottles a week, up from 15 million prior to the expansion and upgrade.



The factory stopped production on Jan. 24 and began a staggered start-up on March 20 before a complete return to full production this week.



Longhorn supplies about 90 percent of Anheuser-Busch Houston’s requirements for the standard 12 oz. bottle, including those for Budweiser and Bud Light, and supplies about 65 percent of the brewery’s total glass requirements.