Spice is the one food category where the cap is ordered before the jar. A sifter disc, a shaker lid and a hinged flip-top all mount on the same neck, and in North America that neck is 43-485. Getting the number right is the difference between a jar that runs and a pallet of jars your capper rejects.
What the Number 43-485 Actually Says
The first half is the thread diameter in millimetres: 43 mm measured across the outside of the thread, the T dimension on a finish drawing. The second half is the series, and the series is where 485 parts company with everything else in the catalogue. It carries a shallower, wider thread profile than the 400 series and a finish height built for a cap with a deep skirt, because a spice cap has to hold a sifter disc as well as seal.
Your cap supplier reads the whole designation. A 43-485 cap and a 43-485 jar from two different factories are made to the same published figures, which is what lets you buy the jar from Shandong and the cap in Ohio without either of them measuring the other first.
Diameter alone never settles a fit. The series after the dash is the half that decides whether your cap seals.
43-485 Against 43-400: Same Diameter, Different Jar
| 43-485 | 43-400 | |
|---|---|---|
| Series | Wide, shallow spice thread. | Standard one-turn continuous thread. |
| What mounts on it | Sifter discs, shaker lids, hinged flip-top spice caps. | Plain screw caps, dispensing closures, child-resistant caps. |
| Where you meet it | The US spice aisle: French squares and their tall cousins. | Sauce jars, packer bottles, wide-mouth food jars. |
| Interchangeable | No. A 43-400 cap does not seal it. | No. A 43-485 cap does not seal it either. |
The trap is that both jars look identical on a photograph and both measure 43 mm across the thread with a tape. Your buyer sees a 43 mm jar; your capper sees a finish it was not set up for. The finish drawing on your SGSBOTTLE quotation carries the T, E, I, S and H figures, so your closure supplier confirms the match on paper long before a container is committed.
Which Spice Jars Carry It
The 4 oz French square is the shape that made the finish standard. Four flat panels, a square footprint that nests in a carton, and 118 ml of capacity that a US line sheet calls 4 oz. The same silhouette runs at 6 oz (177 ml) and 8 oz (237 ml), and the finish stays 43-485 up the range so one cap covers your whole line.
Outside that family you meet other finishes. Tall shaker jars, grinder-topped jars and the 50 ml to 250 ml (1.7 to 8.5 oz) spice range at SGSBOTTLE run on their own necks, several of them with plastic grinders or brush-and-spoon lids that fix a different bore. Naming the cap first is what keeps that straight.
What to Check Before You Order a 43-485 Jar
Four things settle it, and all four live on paper.
- The full designation on both parts. 43-485 on the jar and 43-485 on the cap, written out rather than described as "43 mm".
- The sifter fit. A sifter disc snaps inside the finish bore, so the I dimension matters as much as the thread.
- The liner and your fill. Dry spice, a blend with oil content and a wet seasoning paste each ask a different liner of the same cap.
- A physical sample on your line. Your capping head has its own chuck and torque, and a sample run is the only test for it.
Send the cap you run today, or its drawing, and SGSBOTTLE engineers return the stock jars whose finish drawing it fits, with the drawing attached. Where nothing in the range matches, the finish goes into the mould at the sample-mould stage, and the 5 to 10 decorated samples that come off it are the ones your line tests.