Wests New Zealand managing director Alf Loretan said the event was hugely significant for the South Dunedin company, which had previously relied on a Christchurch business to produce its bottles.
The Christchurch company closed about two and a-half years ago and Wests decided to buy its own machine.
The only other option had been to order bottles from Auckland but, because of transport and production costs, that was not viable.
The choice to import a machine from China was ''a fantastic investment'', Mr Loretan said.
The machine makes six different sizes of bottles and the millionth was produced last week. That bottle had the numerals 1,000,000 written on the side and was put aside as a memento.
Mr Loretan would not specify how much the machine cost other than to say it had paid itself off. Wests NZ makes about 8000 bottles a week.
Mr Loretan was not sure how long it would take to produce the next million bottles but hoped it would be in a similar time span as the first.
Wests had eight staff and distributed its products all over the South Island and to parts of the North Island.
It was founded in 1876 and was one of the longest-operating drink and cordial production companies in New Zealand, he said.
by Samuel White
