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Comment by philips | Hacker News Reader

It is absolutely annoying how difficult it is to find durable glassware. We use glassware for meal prep and freezing leftovers and the modern designs are constantly chipping away at the corners due to poorly designed radiuses. And worse the manufacturers, in particular Pyrex, makes it difficult to buy replacement parts.

For example, they used to provide these excellent "Ultra" lids for their products to replace the terrible plastic lids that constantly break and crack. But, they have slowly been phasing them out and only have a few sizes remaining: https://corelle.com/products/pyrex-r-ultimate-white-lid-for-...

We have stainless steel containers that we use too but those are obviously more annoying because they can't be microwaved at an office/school/etc.

It is really a head scratcher that it is so hard to find quality food storage in 2025.

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>> It is really a head scratcher that it is so hard to find quality food storage in 2025.

We're living in a disposable society. As companies have found out. its better to sell something that lasts for a few years and then (as you have pointed out) force your customers to buy a replacement or a "new and improved" version.

I remember growing up durability and longevity was always a part of the marketing of specific products. I vividly remember in the 70's watching commercials for cookware and the tagline that was used was, "The last mixer you'll ever buy!" or "Commercial grade blender! The blender that your children will use!" that sort of stuff. Nobody really touts the durability or longevity of their products any more.

This is what under-regulated capitalism always leads to... unlimited greed making things worse and more expensive.

Silicon lids on glass containers are a great combo. I use Weck jars, wide-mouth for easier cleaning, in sizes 1L, 500mL, and 200mL, in my commercial kitchen. And stainless steel hotel pans and lids for everything else.

Consumer-grade stuff is a waste of time for several reasons, but in-particular the lack of standardized sizes. When I do catering and people ask about food storage I recommend those wide-mouth glass jars and 4-inch 1/9th and 6-inch 1/6th pans, and standardized baking sheets (1/2 and 1/4 sizes mostly) with re-usable lids.

I use wide-mouth canning jars for lots of things besides canning. They're tough, easy to clean, can handle hot and cold, and there's no plastic touching the food or beverage.

About the only negative is that they sweat a lot in hot weather if you keep cold drinks in them, but it'd probably be easy to make some kind of insulated caddy for them.

> It is really a head scratcher that it is so hard to find quality food storage in 2025.

Anything that seems basic that we cannot master in <current year>, especially if we already mastered it, can usually be explained by a desire to increase profit margin.

Yeah, I understand that sentiment. But, usually some luxury company emerges charging 5x that provides the old product that actually worked.

But that footnote about 5x doesn't make it into statistics that show that standards of living are constantly rising.

Isn't the cost of the "luxury" item that feels like it's older version closer to what the older item cost back then after accounting for inflation?

For example: many often lament washers and dryers of yesteryear, but those appliances cost ~$3000 each after inflation in their respective time periods. Even Speed Queen, which is made in the USA and often touted as being high-quality, doesn't cost as much.

Look to other cultures and markets for this. India and Japan in particular have a massive variety of general and specialized containers in assorted materials, for whatever your needs might be.

Europe/Russia and Nordic countries have more similar bakeware to the US, but since that's not how I normally cook, I'm not as familiar.

I also have friends who are ceramicists, so if you have access to any, you could ask them what they'd charge for some custom glazed earthenware.

I think it's part of the same phenomenon that it's no longer safe to take for granted that a more expensive product with a premium reputation will be better.

I suspect so as well. IIUC, this is a textbook example of "enshitification".

I've been buying third party silicone lids on Amazon that are compatible with pyrex and anchor glass storage.

Oh, interesting! I will look at that.

The biggest problem is finding ergonomically low-effort, efficient storage glassware usable by elderly and disabled people. I wished OXO went away from plastic entirely.

I was surprised to learn that OXO doesn't carry plastic Good Grips containers anymore. This must have been another COVID special, as I purchased an entire set of them years ago. I had to purchase them on eBay.

I like their glass containers but prefer not having to worry about them shattering.

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