Eureka: Why winemakers and Nasa engineers rely on cork

0:15You're listening to Eureka on Monocle Radio, brought to you by the team behind the entrepreneurs, as the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. I'm Tom Edwards. With the wine harvest now coming to an end here in the Northern Hemisphere, winemakers are beginning to plan when to bottle their vintages. One key component in the process, cork, of course. Portuguese company Amarim is the world leader in cork production and its family-run business has prided itself on keeping ahead of the competition since its inception all the way back in 1870. Today, the company's CEO, Antonio Amorim, is looking to plant more cork oak trees, not just because of its proven record in the wine sector, but also because of its impeccable sustainability credentials.

0:57He's particularly bullish on cork's role beyond wine, investing in research to expand the materials applications in industries ranging from aerospace technology to home construction and more besides. So how do you take cork from the wine bottle to the top table of business innovation? Well, here is Antonio Amarim with more.

1:20Cork is clearly the preferred closure on three elements. First of all, performance. It's the only proven product for all types of wines, all segments of the wines over time or to be consumed very quickly. Today in Cork is something that we have worked for the last 25 years like never before. And I think there is a general consensus giving the acknowledgement that Cork industry has revolutionized the performance element of Cork, converting it into a closure that matches the demands of the most sophisticated and demanding winemaker. So from a performance point of view, I think that we have a long track record and we have proven our technical superiority to alternative closures.

2:22In aging, in clearly the improvement that you have on the wine, with the wine that evolves due to the cellular structure of the cork over time. We have scientific data to prove all that and research work that has been done in many wine research centers. There is a second element why cork is the preferred closure, which is the premium look that it gives to a bottle of wine. It's unquestionable. Then when you open a bottle of wine with a cork, when you have that pop, it's completely different from opening a bottle of wine with a screw cap. Wine is an aspirational product that people want to live up to because of the culture, because of the moment, because of the uniqueness of the moment in which you open that bottle of wine.

3:15There is a third element, which is sustainability. For every single ton of cork produced, it has captured 73 tons of CO2. That makes all the cork products with a negative carbon footprint, helping to offset some of the emissions that you have in other packaging or in other parts of the wine industry, making the carbon footprint of the final wine bottle better under cork than under an aluminum screw cap. At the same time, we have developed a bunch of alternative uses to cork that go for industries like flooring, underlayment, insulation, shoes, sports fields. And Cork has been the preferred material to be used as a thermal shield for the space launches.

4:18Not only on the satellite rocket launchers, but also was the preferred material by NASA to be used on a place where there is more, there was more attrition on the space shuttle, which was the nose of the space shuttle. cork has unique characteristics due to its unique cellular honeycomb structure that converts cork as a material that can have fantastic properties as a thermal shield without losing its mass so we believe that there are unique features technical features for cork to continue to be used globally and increasingly. Looking at all these potential uses for cork, not only on the wines, sparkling and spirits, but also an alternative industries, we thought that combining this with the sustainability credentials of cork, that this is a material of the future.

5:23And being a material of the future, we need to think many, many years ahead. For a cork tree to give its first harvest, it takes 25 years. And then you harvest every single cork tree every nine years up to 170, 180, 200 years. It means that we don't cut the tree, we just remove every nine years the bark of the tree for a species that is protected in the Iberian Peninsula and absolutely illegal to chop it down. because that tree really contributes for the CO2 balance that we have at least on this part of the world.

6:07Looking at the future and at the potential of everything that we are doing, we have decided and we have engaged into some substantial investments and in research and development and in plantations, research and development to make sure that we have the best trees selected to face up to climate change, to face up to some natural disease that might be generated in the forest that can really grow faster and can give better quality of cork. And Amarim has bought over the last three years 20 ,000 acres of forest land where we are planting between 250 and 300 ,000 trees every year. So we have a commitment to be planting 1.5 million trees in five, six, seven years on a program that has started already in 2023.

7:05And we're doing this with a slight caveat, which is we're trying to have the initial harvest not at the end of 25, but the end of 10 or 15. So instead of the cork tree being on hibernation for six, seven, eight months in the year, we're trying to have a lower period of hibernation, which means that it will grow faster. And we're trying to do some irrigation to these new saplings, as well as some fertilization to make sure that they grow faster until their first harvest. When we harvest the cork tree for the first time, we will be not applying anymore any water or any fertilizers because we want absolutely the quality of that cork to be the same as the quality of the cork that we have from the existing forests.

8:04And that's the plan that we have decided to engage in and that's what we are moving forward to execute over the next five to six years. Hopefully we'll be so successful that other people would like to come along with us, do their own plantations, use their own carbon credits from these incremental plantations as an additional source of revenue. Somebody will be interested in buying these certified credits that the cork forest will be able to provide. We are clearly a company that is family owned, but I believe professionally managed. Looking at it from a family perspective, we're very proud of working with this unique industry.

8:55And we always have the commitment of trying to transfer it to the next generation in a better shape, in a larger size and with a greater future. We truly believe that a company that does not grow has no future. So we are absolutely committed to make Cork be known to a wider audience. Cork to be used by a wider range of clients and consumers.

9:41And that is all for this episode of Eureka. Special thanks to Ivan Carvalho for his reporting. Do keep an eye and an ear out for The Entrepreneurs, available every Wednesday. The programme's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by David Stevens. You can listen again and find out more at monocle.com or if you'd like to get in touch with Laura and the team, email her on lrk at monocle.com. I'm Tom Edwards, goodbye, and thanks for listening to Eureka.