The Global Cork Market: Carlos de Jesus, Amorim Cork

XChateau is a podcast about all things wine, from vine to your glass. We tackle the business of wine and keep you up to date with new and exciting developments in the wine industry.

In this episode, Robert Vernick and Peter Yeung interview Carlos de Jesus, Director of Marketing and Communications for Amorim Cork in Portugal, the largest cork company in the world which is celebrating its 150 year anniversary in 2020.  We discuss the various uses of cork, the differences between corks and other closures, and how the business of cork has evolved over the decades. 

Other topics covered in this episode include:

• Amorim - 150-year history, largest cork company in the world, produces 5.5 billion stoppers per year, over 18,000 winery clients globally, most small
• Sources cork from 1,000s of property owners, mostly in Portugal and Spain
• Uses of cork: wine, footwear, fishing, aerospace, flooring, and sports
• Differences between cork and other closures: technical, sustainability, and additional value add
• Technical differences
  • Oxygen transfer rate (OTR) - plastic (lets in too much oxygen), screwcap (lets in too little), cork (“just right”)
  • Average cork has 800 million cells in it
  • TCA - “we have defeated TCA” - mitigated to the point where cork is now gaining market share
  • Consistency of corks - not an issue for technical stoppers (micro agglomerates, twin top), the technology used to help with natural corks
• Sustainability - people, planet, profits
  • CO2 - a single cork can have up to 562 g CO2 sink per stopper
  • Cork harvesting one of the best paid agricultural jobs, ~€125-135 / day for three months/year
  • Cork forests one of 36 hot spots for biodiversity in the world
  • Also fights forest fires, regulates water cycles, and trees live 200-250 years
  • Corks are both compostable and recyclable (e.g. - ReCORK America)
• Additional value add = the happy sound of a cork popping
  • Of 100 most sold brands in the US (data from Nielson), the average price of wine with cork  is consistently higher than other closures
• Closure market
  • 19.5B closures per year
  • 12.5B closed with cork (~70%)
  • 1.8-1.9B single-use plastic stoppers
• The price of cork ranges from €0.04 - 3.00 per cork
  • Screwcaps (the lowest price), plastic, cork
  • Cork can now sometimes undercut the price of plastic
• Supply and demand for cork
  • 2.2M hectares of cork forests in the Western Mediterranean - lots of trees to supply the current industry
  • Takes 43 years for a cork tree to supply cork for a wine closure -> new research with micro-irrigation is reducing the first harvest from 25 years to 10-12 years

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