DAY 2: Touring CSP1 Factory at Cork Supply

The purpose of our team coming to Portugal is to compile an Operations Plan for Cork Supply Group, a Portuguese company with subsidiaries to whom they distribute more than 432 million Portuguese corks a year: Cork Supply USA (Benecia, CA), Cork Supply Portugal, Cork Supply Argentina, Cork South Africa, and Cork Supply Australia. We are analyzing their manufacturing operations and production at their primary manufacturing plant called CSP1 located in the northern city of Porto. While we are creating a standard operations plan for CSG, of course we are honing in on increasing energy efficiency and reducing their environmental footprint.

We spent all day today in the CSP1 manufacturing facility in Porto gaining a hands on understanding of Cork Supply Group’s operations. At CSP1, they convert sheets of the dried bark stripped from the cork trees in the south of Portugal into wine corks in an 8 step process:

1. Cut the corkwood into strips
2. Punch corks from strips
3. Rectification/smoothing
4. Mechanical first sorting.
5. Peroxide Washing
6. Drying
7. Innocork
8. Visual sorting to remove defects and for categorization.

We have been really impressed by the level of quality control and testing performed throughout the entire (very integrated) supply chain. Cork experienced some bad PR regarding TCA starting in the 80's which led to an industry shift towards synthetic wine closures. The cork industry has responded with tighter quality control, removing all chlorine (a precursor to TCA) from the water supply, and cork forest farmer education. Needless to say, we are all thoroughly convinced that natural cork is the most sustainable and appealing wine closure available.

DAY 1: Adventures in International Airports

Alas, we landed in Porto, Portugal after roughly 24 hours of travel. We left San Francisco International Airport at 1:50 pm on Monday, October 21, 2008. I think it's safe to say that all four of us (Jacob Park, Carly Smolak, Matt Ryder-Smith, and Sharmila Singh) started the packing race at 10:00am that morning continued the frenzied journey to the BART at 16th and Mission to make our international flight. What a pile.

Miraculously, we made our international flight, passports/luggage/and all, and were airborne at 2:00 pm, giving us enough time to order paninis and chardonnay in SFO’s international terminal. Hungover, sleep deprived, and exhausted after 4 days of residency at Presidio School of Management, the excitement we felt for our trip quickly succumbed to sleep. Eight hours later, strangely the sun was rising again over Germany as we approached our layover in Frankfurt. This is when everything got weird- spending eight hours on a plane is one thing, but having the sun rise kind of out of nowhere is extremely unsettling at 10:00pm (your time). We deplaned into the just-rising Frankfaut, and proceded to be culinarily insulted at the sushi/veiner-schnitzel serving Goethe Bar (what combo, isn’t there some UN resolution banning the coexistence of moulded meat products and sushi?) by stale pretzels, marginal coffee, and croissants as hard as our buttcheeks after a transglobal flight.

Naturally our temporal delirium, stale booties, and revolted palates required the only reliable culinary experience the Germans can be depended on.... biere. Pilsers all around at who-knows-what-time. Oh, weren't we sooo leisurely with our 4 hour layover: we perused the international magazine shelves, traipsed around checking out the tortes offered at McCafe (yyuck), and rapped about the value of the Euro, the British Pound, and the dollar (boo). We stroll up to our gate and slouched in our seats for an hour and a half when we realized that.... our flight was slated to leave in 10 minutes, yet we were the only people there.

Wrong gate. VERY wrong gate. We began to sprint through the terminal from the abandoned gate B12 back through the passport check station until we realized that A38 was the opposite direction. We turn around and sprint, led by Jacob and Matthew, trailed by Carly and Sharmila who were weaving their unchecked carry-on baggage through strolling travelers. We ran and ran, down the corridor and down the escalator. We hung a sharp right only to find 6 flights of stairs glaring down on us. Wheelie bag handles down, grab the handles, and sprint up the stairs, go legs go! Jacob and Matt speed unencumbered ahead. Pant, sweat, pant, up the stairs. Corridor, A1-A8 ahead, jacket flies off my wheelie bag, sweat soaked hair streams behind my furrowed brow. Speed walker conveyer takes us to the next gigantic corridor to A12-A18... and on to the next corridor and onto the next and the next. It was a full 15 minute SPRINT through Frankfurt as the flight attendants urgently called our names to board our departing flight to Porto.....

Suffice it to say we made our flight and arrived at the Melia Gaia Hotel in Porto at 6pm and attempted to settle in before going out to dinner with Anna Cristina from Cork Supply Group. First impressions: the Portuguese are an extremely friendly people who are proud of their country and excited to share it with visitors. Yes! New country, new people, new language.... new wine!