“Cork is our gold”

Albertino Oliveira, marketing director of "Sedacor", a company of the JPS group, is a strong supporter of a sector driven by bravery and innovation.

"Cork is our gold." This deep conviction belongs to Albertino Oliveira, marketing director of the companies "Sedacor", which are part of the JPS Group.

Located in the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira, this group, which has in the industry its main strength, has been working on cork since 1924. The original company is the "Jorge Pinto de Sá, Lda.”, which produces corks, and counts also on three Sedacor units that assume the diversification of the range of products to the world. Albertino Oliveira believes that the cork sector has much more to offer to international markets and to consumers, as there are more and more firms and units, such as theirs, with the certainty that innovation and bravery are the way.

"Cork is the only product in which we are leaders in the world," he noted, emphasizing that this branch has the capabilities and potential "to leverage other industries" of the national economy. He gave as example the furniture, textiles and footwear industries, compared to which the firm has even innovated, presented products that many considered impossible to be made with that genuinely Portuguese raw material.

With JPS, always and definitely, betting on corks, a natural seal for the wine that, meantime had won a kind of world war against plastic and metal seals, the Sedacor were born to take advantage of by-products resulting from that primary production.

The responsible said that the development of these three firms has been constant, which has led to the condition of the largest invoices of the group: about 18 million euros annual turnover for the three combined, while the original JPS has registered 10 million.

"Cork is getting trendy," said Albertino Oliveira. Enthusiastic about an experiment that helps to define the new trends and needs of consumers, this businessman stressed that the cork industry has "made the economy move for tens of years", reusing more than 90 percent of its waste. "And we don’t cut trees," he said, to point out an important information that many people in the world stil haven’t understood: this is a raw material that renews itself.

With eyes focused on new market niches, such as Vegan consumers - those who don’t consume or use products and articles of animal origin – he has reaffirmed the almost compulsory "innovation as an attitude", without fear to create a cork dress or a pair of shoes or a soccer ball in this material or create a tissue in cork and with synthetic cotton.

In the process of associating knowledge centers to his crative process, such as the University of Porto, Sedacor has been able to make its management philosophy to evolve, which "passed from a factory philosophy to a company philosophy", that should maintain a "constant evolution", not waiting for the market to say what it wants. "In this house we are dreamers," said Albertino Oliveira, noting that in addition to participating in fairs and other forums where trends can be discovered, JPS Group decision-makers became accustomed to "listening", namely customers and employees, and listen without prejudice, expecting that it is possible to get a good idea.

He also said that the touristic boom the country is passing through, having Lisbon and Oporto full of visitors, and with other growing regions being over-demanded, this should also be used by the cork industry.

Portugal has half of the world's cork production, which exports 80 percent of industrial production. However, according to Albertino Oliveira, "it does not reach 1 billion euros" of global export revenues. The marketing director of "Sedacor" also pointed out that the sector’s incomes round the 900 million while the textiles’ are about five billion euros.