Today, with its cutting edge technology, our company covers the entire production process.
From the selection of the raw material in Spain and Portugal to the processing and marketing of the finished product. Our primary goal is to provide customers with a safe and high-quality product.
A family tradition
Interview with Claudio Correggi
Our family has been producing cork stoppers for over a hundred years. The first was my great-grandfather Raimondo who, in the late 1800s, left the chestnut forests of Cervarezza, a mountain village in the Reggio Emilia Apennines, for the oak the forests of Maremma to escape starvation. He would return to the village with cork barks that he would process during the winter and turn into stoppers that would be sold on the plains in the spring with chestnuts and wood.
Cork is the story of our family, of generations who have followed one after the other to keep this tradition alive and, while respecting its ancient roots, we have continually innovated our production processes and introduced new technologies to achieve an ever-better product. We believe that continuous investment in R&D in our laboratories is key to meeting the challenges of tomorrow with increasingly more eco-friendly solutions and higher-performance products.
For our family, respect for this tradition means doing better each day than the day before so that we can continue to help produce one of Made in Italy’s leading products, which is wine.
Claudio Correggi
Vice President
of Italsughero S.r.l.
From our origins to today
Our history
1915
Over a century of tradition
Cork processing is a family tradition that has ancient origins and developed in Cervarezza, a village in the Apennine Mountains of Reggio Emilia where our ancestors came from. Here shepherds, returning from “transhumance” in the Maremma, would bring cork bark with them to be processed manually in houses and cellars to make corks, which would then be sold on the plains. Our family, along with other local families, was part of this history of trade and cultural exchange which made the economy of that small town flourish. This history is told today in the Cervarezza Cork Museum.
1962
From artisans to entrepreneurs
In 1962, Primo, Battista, Quarto and Giovanni Correggi founded Italsughero at Montecchio Emilia.
“Our grandfather, with his older sons, used to come to Montecchio for the San Simone fair to sell the stoppers he had made in Cervarezza. He liked the town and its people, and he settled here in the 1950s. Soon after, our father Primo, together with some of his brothers, founded the company with the name it still bears today.”
Ciro Correggi
1980
Twenty years of adventure
After almost twenty years of business adventures, during which Italsughero laid solid foundations, the four brothers broke up. Battista, Giovanni and Quarto pay off and Primo remained as the sole owner of the company, which he was to pass on to his sons, Ciro and Claudio, within a few years.
(Photo: Primo Correggi)
1992
The first technical stopper
In 1992 we installed our first gluing machine. It was an important step that allowed us to diversify our products and it opened doors onto new markets which over the years would become very important for our company . This product innovation was important for Italsughero. It brought us new skills, suppliers, instruments and a new way of creating value.
1993
Towards new lands
The need to increase volumes of production and seek better quality raw materials led new generations of the Correggi family to look to Spain and to Jerez de Los Caballeros in the autonomous community of Extremadura in particular. Here, the climate and soil ensure that the cork oak forests that grow there provide a very high quality raw material. Our permanent presence in the area enabled us to establish strong relationships to source supplies which over time became very solid to the point where we are able to directly supervise the initial stages of processing the cork after the bark is removed in the forest, consisting of storage, maturing and the first boiling.
2001
The laboratory and new technologies
In 2001, Italsughero opened its first in-house laboratory which meant it could perform continuous quality controls on its raw materials, auxiliary materials, production processes and the finished product.
“We increased our volumes of production and diversified our products, but at that point we knew that we had to take a leap forward to set ourselves apart, a leap that had to be in the quality and safety of our products for which new technologies were essential. So we set up an in-house laboratory to work full-time on quality control and R&D.”
Claudio Correggi
2008
Portugal
In 2008, we decided to replicate what we had done in Spain in the 1990s and sank roots in Portugal, the largest producer of cork in the world. A presence in Portugal is essential both for supplies and also to carry out the first quality controls by exclusion on the raw material.
2021
The sustainability challenge
In 2021, we embarked on a sustainability programme driven by the desire to go beyond formal obligations and the financial dimension of the results alone. We therefore published our first sustainability report as a new practice to also report on our social and environmental results. Furthermore, by involving our collaborators we formulated a sustainability plan to guide our future actions.
2023
A new logo to better represent who we are today
After deep reflection on our history, values, and goals, we have created a new logo that best expresses “what we are made of”.
- KNOW-HOW AND CAPABILITIES - The three circles framing our name represent the holes left by the ancient die-cutting technique, symbolizing the distinctive skills our company possesses in processing a precious, natural raw material like cork.
- TERRITORIAL ROOTEDNESS - Green, white and red: the Italian flag colors our logo. For us, being rooted in the territory means always doing better to continue to contribute to the creation of one of the flagship products of Made in Italy: wine.
- TRADITION - We are a company with a long history, passed down through generations. Tradition enables us to ensure that every step forward is a tribute to our past and an investment in improving the future. It is this element of tradition that guides and informs every decision we make.
- FUTURE - For us, innovation means learning and growth. Every day, we work to enhance our skills, invest in research and development, and seek solutions that ensure a better tomorrow for future generations.
2026
In-house laboratory accreditation
Italsughero’s in-house laboratory is accredited by Accredia in accordance with UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025 (Certificate No. 02391 Testing Laboratory) to perform the tests covered by its scope of accreditation.
This recognition demonstrates the laboratory’s technical competence and further strengthens the company’s quality control system.