Guala Closures: aesthetics, barrier properties, and anticounterfeiting for luxury packaging

The Group reinforces its innovative drive with new sustainable materials and blockchain technology

by Maria Costanza Candi

High-end, innovative and sustainable closures designed to protect and enhance brand value lie at the heart of Guala Closures’ business. With 37 manufacturing sites and a commercial presence in 100 countries, the company produces closures for wine & spirits, beer, edible oils, condiments and, following the recent acquisition of KWK in Austria, also for pharmaceutical packaging. At Luxe Pack, the international showcase for luxury packaging, Guala Closures presented its ‘Prestige’ product range and a digital configurator. This fully digital space allowed visitors to discover the complexity of the company’s design, manufacturing, research, and development processes. The goal: to ensure brand enhancement, superior barrier properties and full traceability - key themes explored in this interview with Piero Cavigliasso, Product Development & Innovation Director.

What defines Guala’s business?
“We innovate with a focus on customisation, best exemplified by our ‘Prestige’ range, dedicated to the luxury segment. Guala Closures has long been a leader in plastic safety and guarantee closures. Around the year 2000, the company began extending its product range to aluminium, driven by a series of strategic acquisitions that broadened its applications to wine, spirits, mineral water and, more generally, all closures for glass-bottles. Inspired by the distilling culture of our Scottish operations, the company launched the ‘Prestige’ line for spirits, moving towards closures distinguished by exceptional quality and meticulous attention to detail. Among the materials used is Gravitas, a plastic compound incorporating heavy particles that give the closure a solid feel - perceived by the consumer as a sign of quality. Another solution that combines quality, sustainability and premium positioning is the closure manufactured in Mexico using waste from tequila production, which, when blended with plastic, allows up to a 50% reduction in plastic content. We also use Zamak, a metal alloy, as well as ceramic materials and wood. In the wine sector, aluminium closures are widely used in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, yet they still encounter some resistance in countries with a long-standing winemaking tradition such as Italy and France, despite their proven technical advantages, which ensure consistent product quality and over time”.

Research often looks to emerging trends. What do you see in the near future?
“The future will definitely be shaped by premiumisation and sustainability - two directions we consistently strive to combine through surface enhancement techniques such as embossing and debossing, metallisation and decoration, all carried out using sustainable materials”. With our NGS (No Glue System) sustainable solutions, we can also produce closures with wooden finishes that deliver excellent mechanical resistance. Wherever possible, we prioritise the use of recycled and recyclable materials, though food-contact regulations still impose several limitations, restricting applications mainly to aluminium and rPET. The latter is an outstanding material from both a quality and environmental perspective. We are finalising studies to optimise its processing, ensuring that it fully meets Guala’s stringent closure quality standards. Another increasingly central area of innovation is digitalisation, serving purposes of anti-counterfeiting, traceability, but also marketing. Guala Closures has long been at the forefront of the fight against counterfeiting, initially through anti-refill valves, then with anti-tamper and tamper-evident systems. In the early 1990s, as counterfeit techniques became more sophisticated, it became necessary to develop technologies that could act as a barrier against the cloning of our closures. This led to the introduction of electromagnetic forming, developed at our specialised facility in Scotland, and to digitally connected closures, for example those integrating NFC technology. Readable via mobile devices, these closures feature an electronic tamper-evident system that detects the transition from sealed to opened, providing dual verification: physical - through the mechanical tamper-evident seal - and digital - through traceability for both the brand and the end consumer, who also gains access to premium content and marketing campaigns. Data collection can be managed through either the customer’s own platform or through Guala’s proprietary system. We also offer integration and customisation services to ensure seamless interoperability between platforms. Examples of these ‘digital bottles’ include those featuring personalised NFC tags and QR codes, with over 80 million units already launched across various markets. We have already integrated digital closure traceability systems with blockchain technology. Future developments may extend digitalisation to cover, for example, fiscal traceability, helping to combat the illegal distribution of alcoholic beverages. In such a system, a government authority could collect taxes directly at the source, while certifying product authenticity and eliminating the need for the traditional paper-based labels, which are easily replicated. For the wine, spirits and pharmaceutical sectors, what is at stake is not only economic loss but also consumer health and safety. Ultimately, the challenge ahead is to build a comprehensive digitalisation pathway that enables multi-factor anti-counterfeiting, combining technologies such as NFC, unique QR codes and blockchain with the traditional solutions that have always defined Guala Closures’ portfolio”.