Your machine isn’t the wrong size. It’s the wrong format.
There’s an order you can’t take. A contract customer wants 500ml, an export listing needs 650ml, or a buyer wants a 26 mm crown and your machine runs 29 mm. None of that is a capacity problem and none of it needs a second machine.
From EUR 1,000, and we’ll tell you if the answer’s no
Tell us the bottle you run now, the bottle you want to run, and send a photo of the machine. You get back a yes, a no, or a “yes, with this”. Free, no obligation, answer within 24 hours.
Format-change kits
FromEUR 1,000
Made to order, so the figure depends on your bottle and your machine. Send us both and we’ll quote it.
Check whether your machine can run itThe alternative: a second machine
FromEUR 30,000
Worth the comparison. If the constraint is the bottle rather than the capacity, a kit is roughly a tenth of the cost of another machine.
Reconditioned machinesParts held in the EU
Shipped DAP. No transatlantic freight, no import paperwork, and VAT handled as a domestic transaction.
12-month warranty
On every part we supply, with the exclusions written down rather than buried.
We were owners first
We bought a Meheen before we ever worked on anybody else’s. Every machine we touch gets written up.
Nothing here is a second machine
The parts that locate, grip, seal against and cap the bottle are the parts that change. Everything else stays where it is.
A Meheen is a crown-cap machine. It doesn’t cork and it doesn’t cage, and no kit changes that. What it will do is run either crown size, 26 mm or 29 mm.
Four bottle sizes and one crown change
| 330ml | The European craft standard |
|---|---|
| 500ml | German and Central European retail |
| 650ml | Specific export and regional listings |
| 750ml | The large-format sharing bottle, crown-capped |
| 26 mm ↔ 29 mm crown | Both crown sizes, and the change between them |
Each format has its own page and its own check
330ml
The European craft standard, and the small bottle most of the market is built around.
330ml kit Format500ml
The retail standard across Germany and much of Central Europe. Usually a straightforward conversion.
500ml kit Format650ml
A format you don’t need until a buyer names it, and then nothing else will do. Send us their bottle spec.
650ml kit Format750ml
The large-format sharing bottle. Different shelf, different price per litre, same crown cap.
750ml kitIt doesn’t make your machine faster or newer. It makes it eligible.
Think about what sits on the other side of a bottle. A 500ml is the German retail standard. A 650ml is a specific set of export buyers. A 750ml is a different shelf and a different price per litre. A 26 mm crown is what one particular customer specifies and won’t move on. Each one’s a door, and the bottle is the key.
So the question isn’t what a kit costs. It’s what one order in the channel you can’t currently serve is worth to you. You’re the only person who can answer that, so here’s the working with your numbers left in your hands.
A framework you fill in, not a claim about what a format is worth
No verified figure exists for what a new listing returns a European craft producer, and we’d rather hand you the working than invent one. Every number below that’s ours is real.
What we know
- The kit starts at EUR 1,000 and it’s a one-off.
- It doesn’t stop you running the format you run now.
- Changing over afterwards is an operating procedure, not another purchase.
What only you know
- The margin on one order in the channel it opens.
- How many of those you could realistically get in a year.
- What you’re turning down, quoting at a loss, or filling by hand right now.
If one order covers the kit, it’s paid for itself in a single transaction and everything after that is margin on capacity you already own. The alternative isn’t doing nothing — it’s a second machine, a co-packer taking margin on every bottle forever, or turning the order down.
Usually. Not always. Here’s what decides it.
Diameter. The machine handles 53 mm to 76 mm, and it’s diameter rather than volume that it cares about. Most standard European formats sit inside that, but a particular bottle from a particular glassworks can sit outside it. This is the commonest reason a check comes back as a qualified yes.
Height and neck. Height affects handling and how the fill tube engages. The neck finish decides whether your crown hardware carries over or whether you also need the other crown size.
Crown size. 26 mm or 29 mm. If the new bottle wants the other one, that’s part of the kit rather than a separate job.
What’s actually on your machine now. These get modified and adapted by their owners over the years. A photograph tells us what’s really there. The serial helps if you have it, but we hold only a partial register, so don’t go hunting for it.
That’s why the check is free. Send those things and you get back whether your machine can run your bottle, what the kit covers, and what if anything sits outside it. If the answer’s no we say no — a kit sold into a machine that can’t run the format is a returned kit and a lost customer, which is a bad trade both ways.
A made-to-order set of the machine’s format-dependent parts — what locates, grips, seals against and caps one specific bottle. It isn’t a modification. It’s the machine doing what it already does, dimensioned for a different bottle.
No two kits are quite the same, because what a kit contains depends on what your bottle and your machine actually need. That’s also the honest reason lead times vary.
Plan on Roughly 6–8 weeks for production, and another 2–4 weeks if we’re assembling and testing it here before it ships. The real dates go in the written quote. Shipping’s DAP anywhere in Europe.
We restore what the machine does. We don’t change its function, and we don’t add or re-issue any CE certification.
Once the kit exists, changing format is something your own people do. We supply it, we can fit and commission it the first time, and we’ll walk your operator through the changeover so the second one is routine.
The manufacturer builds machines in Colorado. Buying format parts from another continent means transatlantic lead time, import handling and support in a different time zone.
Nobody else in Europe makes these. That isn’t a boast, it’s the reason the work came to us in the first place — friends kept asking whether their machine could take a different bottle, and eventually we worked out how.
We’re new as a business and we say so. Rather than point at a track record, we publish the method: the check happens before you pay, the kit’s quoted in writing with a lead time, and how buying from us works is on the site rather than in a promise. More about us.
The ones worth answering before you write
How much is a format-change kit?
From EUR 1,000. It’s made to order, so the real figure depends on your bottle and your machine.
Do I need two kits for 33cl and 330ml?
No, one kit.
Can you make it do cork and cage?
No. A Meheen crowns and that’s the end of it. Crown size is different: 26 mm and 29 mm both run, and we build the kit to change between them.
How do I know it’ll fit my machine?
Tell us the bottle you run now and the bottle you want to run, and send a photo of the machine. Serial if you have it. The check is free and you’ll have an answer within 24 hours.
What if my bottle’s unusual?
Say so and send its spec sheet, or a photo with the dimensions on it. The machine handles 53–76 mm diameters, the exceptions are real, and we’d rather find yours before you order.
Can I still run my old format afterwards?
Yes. A kit adds a format, it doesn’t take one away. Going back is a changeover, not another purchase.
Does fitting a kit change my machine’s CE status?
We restore what the machine does. We don’t change its function, and we don’t add or re-issue any CE certification. A kit dimensions the machine for a different bottle. It doesn’t alter what the machine does.
How long does a kit take to make?
Roughly 6–8 weeks for production, and another 2–4 weeks if we’re assembling and testing it here before it ships. The real dates go in the written quote.
What’s actually in a kit?
It depends on your bottle and your machine — it’s rare for two kits to be exactly the same, which is why there’s no parts list on this page. The quote itemises what yours contains.
Do you fit it, or do we?
Either. We’ll fit it, commission it and walk your operator through the changeover, or ship it to your own maintenance team.
Is a kit really cheaper than a second machine?
Kits from EUR 1,000, machines from EUR 30,000. If the constraint is the bottle, the kit’s the answer. If you’re actually out of capacity we sell machines too, and we’ll tell you which problem you’ve really got.
Tell us what you need
Machine stopped, a part to find, a bottle you can’t currently run, or you’re thinking about buying one. Same form for all of it. A photo helps more than anything else you can send us.
An engineer reads this, not a sales inbox. We answer within 24 hours, in English or French.
Got it. An engineer reads this, and you’ll hear back inside 24 hours.
If it’s a fault, you’ll get one of three answers: something you can put right yourself today, something that needs a part, or something that needs somebody standing in front of it. If it’s a part, you’ll get an identification, a price and a real lead time. If it’s a machine or a format change, you’ll get a straight answer about what we’ve got and what it would take.
If we need one more detail to be sure, we’ll ask for that one thing rather than sending you another form.
Tell us the bottle you want to run
Free. The bottle you run now, the bottle you want, and a photo of the machine. Answer within 24 hours.