IN JUST WHAT APPLICATIONS HAS CORK NEVER BEEN USED AND TO WHICH IT CAN ADD VALUE?
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGES FOR CORTICEIRA AMORIM. THE CORK POTENTIAL CONTINUES TO GAIN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND, IN A WORLD WHERE INNOVATION AND ECOLOGY WALK HAND IN HAND, THIS MATERIAL IS ATTRACTING EVER INTEREST IN A GROWING NUMBER OF SECTORS.
The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, one of the most visited monuments worldwide, has had a cork pavement since 2011, London’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is made of cork according to a design by the architects Herzog & de Meuron and by the artist Ai Weiwei and, most recently, cork was deployed as the substrate for pitches in four Euro 2016 stadiums (France), a competition in which Portugal emerged victorious. These are just some examples of projects that perfectly illustrate the path chosen by Corticeira Amorim to position itself in the market and to take the name of Portugal out to the rest of the world.
These projects remain in keeping with the strategy adopted by Corticeira Amorim at the beginning of this century when confronted with the arrival of artificial, plastic stoppers on the market. Corticeira decided then it would only use and work with cork but in a completely different manner, embracing innovation to research and develop new products and processes. According to António Rios de Amorim, Corticeira Amorim President, “this new form of approach enabled us to, over the medium and long term, ensure the quality consistency of cork stoppers and thus develop a stopper portfolio responding to every pricing point in the world of wine. Nowadays, there is the commonly prevailing perception that cork stoppers are the best for sealing and the only means with a capacity to add value to the wine”.
According to António Rios de Amorim, “innovation is essential in the current environment Corticeira Amorim is
experiencing and not only in the product area. This new way of doing things, adopting new technologies, new processes, also includes new approaches to conventional processes”. He further adds that “on average, Corticeira Amorim invests €7.5 M in R&D and innovation and that this investment has increased in recent years”.
Cork stoppers currently represent around two-thirds of the company’s turnover and important R&D investment has correspondingly targeted this area.
“At Corticeira Amorim, we believe cork still has much to offer, a belief backed by the natural characteristics of cork as a raw material that and, only now, there is greater awareness as to its potential thanks to the strategy adopted in the meanwhile.” These characteristics and a culture focusing closely on the need to innovate is leading to the ongoing development of unexpected cork solutions. “Airspace and aeronautics are some of the fields where there is great growth potential. In the transportation sector, we are witnessing growing recourse to anti-vibration applications and, in building and construction, cork is getting more widely incorporated into anti-seismic solutions. I believe in the potential scope of penetration for cork solutions. Interior design and cork furniture, where we are already working with renowned international brands, will continue to be the focus of our attentions”, the company leader added.
The affirmation of cork pavements as a mainstream solution and the development of high value material applications rank among the strategic options of Corticeira Amorim for forthcoming times and deployed to ensure the choice of cork as a sealing material gets increasingly valued.
An example of entrepreneurship, leadership and management
Américo Ferreira de Amorim was born in Mozelos, Santa Maria da Feira, on July 21, 1934. He died in July 2017 shortly after turning 83. He had served as Commander since the 1980s. On November 24, 1983, he was awarded the Agricultural and Industrial Civil Merit Order in the Industrial Category and, on January 30, 2006, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Infante D. Henrique.
He inherited the cork business from his grandfather António Alves de Amorim who founded what may be defined as the origins of the Amorim empire more than 140 years ago. Américo is the fifth of eight children and became an orphan when very young. He was invited by an uncle to work in the family company, where he began aged 18 as a manual worker after having finished the General Commerce Course. Ever since, for the last 59 years, he gave his life and built the group we know today.
Ten years after joining the company, he launched the group’s expansion strategy. In the 1980s, Corticeira Amorim went public and from then on expanded into sectors such as banking, energy, real estate, tourism, textiles, fashion, among others. He was known both as the “king of cork” and the richest man in Portugal with his fortune valued at over four billion euros securing him 385th place on the 2017 list of the world’s richest people (compiled by the American magazine Forbes).
Amorim was a discrete man, sometimes hard in negotiation and, with inexhaustible energies, having worked through to almost his last days of life.
