Targeting sustainability one stopper at a time

The M. A. Silva Group, founded in 1972 by Manuel Alves da Silva, its current chairman, has grown continuously for more than 50 years, on the pillars that support research, innovation, technology and sustainability, focusing on the production of natural and technical cork stoppers.

With the aim of contributing to the preservation and evolution of wines and sparkling wines for more than five decades, the Group has two raw material centres, three national production units and seven distribution units across the world in the USA, Brazil, Chile, France, Spain and China, as well as other exclusive agents in the different geographies where the production takes place.

Throughout the Group’s history, the proximity, knowledge and rigour of its founder have passed from generation to generation, right up to the present board of directors.

“It is our name in the world that I want to preserve as the company's future heritage," explains chief executive José Silva.

With a production that is 100% vertically integrated, from stripping to customer delivery, José Silva emphasises the Group's continuous investment and highlights the latest raw material centre, a result of the new cork campaign.

He says: "We have harvested 700,000 arrobas, which is equivalent to 10.5 million kg, to ensure and continually strengthen our delivery capacity, always aligned with customer expectations.”

It all starts in the heart of the Alentejo, with the demanding and rigorous selection of cork. M. A. Silva is a company run by a professional team with extensive experience in the sector. In 2022, it had around 400 employees worldwide, overseeing the daily handling of the best cork in the world, namely through a range of quality control, stabilisation and selection activities taking place in around 105,000 sq m of state-of-the-art facilities.

José Silva also highlights "the sale of more than 700 million cork stoppers in 2022, 12 million of which were processed using the ONEBYONE^® individual analysis system, and 90% of exports to more than 40 wine producing countries, with a total of more than 8,000 customers, in the four corners of the world".

Tech empire

The Group's technological empire has contributed to these figures and in 1995 it achieved its first conquest in terms of quality, by obtaining certification under the ISO 9001 standard. It has subsequently been distinguished as the first company in the sector to be certified under the ISO 22000 standard.

With unrivalled technology supremacy in 2016, including ONEBYONE^® technology, which ensures individual analysis for TCA detection; SARA ADVANCED^®, dedicated to sensory standardisation; and DYNAVOX^® in 2003, considered the best raw material sterilisation technology in the sector. With all this, the Group has risen to the status of technological leader.

With an investment of more than €15m in cutting-edge technologies, namely in NEOTECH^®, since 2020, the M. A. Silva Group ensures consistent financial solidity, bringing to technical cork stoppers a unique level of quality and a touch of natural and differentiated cork, in addition to a traceable production, with the guarantee of TCA-free cork stoppers.

The company is focused on reaching the historic production mark of 1 billion cork stoppers. José Silva reveals: "Never before have we felt we are contributing so much to the sustainability of our business model, to the wellbeing of our teams, and with such an extraordinary social and environmental contribution, which differentiates a natural product with a negative carbon impact. It is our commitment to present and future generations, to the development of our society and to a better world."

Sustainability commitment

M. A. Silva is also synonymous with its commitment to sustainability. M. A. Silva cork stoppers are made from 100% natural cork, which is 100% reusable and 100% recyclable – the emphasis on the cork oak forest and its importance for the planet reinforces the Group's mission. Cork oaks take up 2.2 million ha of the total area of the Mediterranean Basin and allow the absorption of 14 million tonnes of CO₂ every year. In Portugal, about 500 million ha are FSC certified^®, representing a veritable biodiversity hotspot, sustaining 37 species of mammal, and 160 bird and 135 plant species per km². In social terms, they are crucial in combating desertification, and in enhancing the value of rural areas and proper agricultural wages.

"Never before have we felt we are contributing so much to the sustainability of our business model, to the wellbeing of our teams, and with such an extraordinary social and environmental contribution, which differentiates a natural product with a negative carbon impact."
M. A. Silva Chief Executive José Silva

The responsible production process of M. A. Silva has achieved a negative carbon footprint with regard to its own production of cork stoppers, a distinction assessed by KPMG, whose calculation model is carried out applying the Footprint Expert tool to the Cork Oak Forest (accounting for carbon sequestration resulting from the cork oak forest); transportation (use of combustion-propelled transport ); energy (use of energy in production centres); and materials (production and transport of chemical materials), in a cradle-to-gate perspective (extraction of raw materials, treatment, production and finishing).

Finally, the results point to the reality that a cork stopper can cancel out the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine as a packaging product (sparkling wine: 589.2g; natural: 267.7g; micro agglomerated: 323.3g).

The Group is one of the few that are totally independent in the cork transformation sector and is growing solidly, with the certainty of naturally contributing to the exponential evolution of the cork sector. With a portfolio of increasingly distinct and varied cork stoppers,

M. A. Silva exists for the best and is, therefore, naturally better, naturally preserving the sealing and evolution of wines and sparkling wines, generation by generation, technology by technology, stopper by stopper.