Soft drink bottles are ordinarily packaged by bottlers in cases holding several plastic or glass bottles for shipment to retailers or for storage. The cases are customarily stacked on top of the bottles in the lower tray for storage in warehouses. The trays must therefore be particularly stable in order to remain standing in storage. The bottles are generally stored in plastic low depth cases in which the side walls of the cases are lower than the height of the bottles and in which the bottles support the weight of the cases stacked on top of the bottles. When cases of these are stacked for display, the only bottles which can be removed from the stack are those stored in the top case.
Currently in order for a bottle to be displayed, it must be removed from the tray and placed in a display rack. If the trays are stacked on the bottles for display, the bottles can only be removed from the top tray. The top tray is removed from the stack when empty to provide access to the bottles on the next tray. Trays stacked on the tops of the bottles in the lower trays are unstable, particularly when bottles are removed from the lower trays while in storage.