Why not glass?
An honest answer, from a company that sells steel.
If you switched from plastic to glass, you made a good decision. We're not here to talk you out of it. Glass is clear, it's stable, it goes in the microwave, and it's cheap.
But there are four things about glass containers that almost nobody checks before buying one.
1. Look at the lid
Most glass containers are only glass at the bottom. Almost every glass food container in a Dutch kitchen closes with a plastic lid.
- IKEA 365+: "Lid: Polypropylene plastic."
- Mepal: materials listed as "Glas, PP, TPE."
- HEMA: "doorzichtige kunststof deksel."
- Glasslock: "the lids are made of polypropylene."
So fill one, put it on its side in a bag, and your food is resting against the one material you were trying to get away from. Glass solved the box. Not the lid.
There are exceptions. Safecourt Kitchen, a Dutch brand, sells borosilicate glass containers with a glass lid and a silicone ring. If you want glass without a plastic lid, it exists. But a glass lid breaks the same way the box does, which brings us to the next point.
Ours is steel, lid included. See every brand's materials, quoted from their own pages →
2. Glass doesn't forgive you
It slips out of your hand taking it out of the fridge. It gets nudged off the counter. It goes off the edge of the table. On a tile floor that's the end of it, and you're sweeping for the next fifteen minutes. You don't have to leave the house for that. Take it in a school bag, a gym bag or on the back of a bike and the odds only go up, which is also why most Dutch swimming pools and festivals don't allow glass.
Drop a steel container and you get a dent, not shards. Steel scratches and it dents. Neither is a reason to replace it.
3. Glass containers don't go in the glasbak
This one surprises almost everyone. The glass in food containers has a different composition from bottles and jars, and it disrupts glass recycling. So a broken or worn-out glass container belongs in general waste.
"Vershoudbakjes van glas gooi je bij het restafval en niet in de glasbak."
"Metalen vershoudbakjes kunnen bij het oud ijzer."
That's not our reading of it. It comes from waarzitwatin.nl, made by RIVM and VeiligheidNL on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, and the NVWA.
That doesn't make glass a bad choice. It means the recycling argument for glass is weaker than most people assume.
4. The seal
Glass containers have a seal too, and it's usually the first part to go. Glasslock says its gaskets are "not available as a separate replacement part." Le Parfait advises replacing its rubber seals every six months with everyday use.
Our containers have one food-grade silicone seal. It wears out eventually, so we sell it separately, for a few euros. Replacement seals →
What glass does better
- You can see inside. Steel can't do that, and there's no workaround.
- The microwave. Glass goes in the microwave. Steel never does. The oven isn't the difference: steel can go in the oven too, as long as you take off the lid and the seal. If you reheat in the microwave, choose glass.
- Price. A glass container from IKEA costs a few euros. We won't pretend to compete with that.
- No nickel. Stainless steel contains nickel. Roughly one in ten people is sensitive to it, and you should know that.
So which one?
Glass is for the microwave. Steel is for everything else.
If you reheat food in the microwave in the container itself, glass does something steel can't, and we'd tell you to keep it for that. For everything else, in the fridge, on the counter, in a bag or a lunchbox, steel is the one that survives being dropped.
Food should be stored without doubt.