As global wine production reaches record levels, so does the production of wine corks, which is good news for Portugal. “Portugal has the largest cork forest in the world accounting for about 50% of the world’s cork production,” says Jochen Michalski, President of the Cork Supply Group.
The U.S.-owned Cork Supply Group is one of the largest cork producers in the world, followed closely by the Suberus Group. Together they have been responsible for bringing the Portuguese cork industry into the 21st century. They have done this by modernizing the technology of cork production, by breaking into new global markets and by following one very simple maxim: only one cork goes into each bottle so the quality of each and every cork counts.

Both companies operate globally. The Suberus Group is active in twenty countries. Number one in Australia, they are currently concentrating on tripling their share of the U.S. market. Henrique Martins and Manuel Bastos, joint administrators of Suberus, are fully aware of how the industry has changed. “Cork today is a cutting edge industry and our continual investment in R&D, technology and new product development enables us to form a direct link between our clients, the wineries and cork production. Our most recent investment, Subercentro in central Portugal, is the most modern cork production facility in the world,” they proudly explain. “Subercentro is our calling card for U.S. market expansion and U.S. wine companies have already accepted our invitation to come to Portugal to see our facilities for themselves.”

Conversely, the Cork Supply Group already has 25% of the U.S. market and is looking to expand elsewhere. “In 1990 we went global and now have a strong presence in South Africa, South America and New Zealand,” says Mr. Michalski. “Our goal is to achieve 25% market share in all the new wine countries.”
Over 370,000 acres of new cork forests have been planted in the Iberian Peninsula in the last 20 years, a reforestation program that continues on an annual basis. Due to excellent growing conditions, Portugal’s cork trees will this year produce 170,000 tons of cork bark. Mr. Martins and Mr. Bastos have a very clear view of how this production must link up with cork manufacture. “The challenge for Suberus is to reinforce the positive image of the natural wine cork, while ensuring there is sufficient raw material to fulfil the needs of the international market. We are associated with 50 Portuguese cork producers who collectively own around 7% of the total production in Portugal,” they explain. “This is an important alliance because it allows the industry to guide producers on ways of improving quality whilst reducing costs.”

In 1995 the Cork Supply Group opened its own factory in Portugal to guarantee reliable supplies of corks to their global customer base. “We have entered into a partnership with Equipar, Portugal’s largest cork forest management company,” says Michalski, “We intend to invest 10 million dollars in Equipar and quadruple our production capacity to around 700 million corks a year.”
Partnerships with growers combined with investment in new technology mean that both companies can now trace the origin of each cork back to the tree from which it came. “Traceability is the new level of quality control required in the major wine producing countries,” say the joint administrators. “It means that our latest product is the most advanced, ecologically processed and clean natural cork stopper for still wine in the world.”

Traditional growers have responded incredibly well to the modernization of the industry as have the Portuguese in many areas of the national economy. Jochen Michalski sums up the buoyant mood in the country he came to 15 years ago. “I would certainly recommend Portugal to
U.S. investors as there are still many opportunities in areas such as wine, tourism, textiles and the footwear
industries.”