Alimarket, recognised as the leading source of sectoral economic information in Spain, highlights our strong commitment to innovation, one of our top priorities: “Torrent Group reaffirms its strategic commitment to innovation by incorporating new processes and tools and developing new materials to advance sustainability without compromising the functionality, food safety, or uniqueness of its products.” Furthermore, the article emphasises the Group’s commitment to sustainability, outlining the eco-responsible actions that accounted for the majority of the company’s investments in recent years, as well as those planned for the future.
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Alimarket: Grupo Torrent Consolidates its Strategic Commitment to Innovation
The Cádiz-based group, a manufacturer of plastic and metal closures for wine, spirits, and oils, Torrent Group, reaffirms its strategic commitment to innovation by incorporating new processes and tools and developing new materials to advance sustainability without compromising the functionality, food safety, or uniqueness of its products.
In this regard, the company recently launched its patented system ‘Lenticular Security by Torrent (LST)’, a customisable security closure technology for spirits and liquors that combines a lenticular image and nanolaser texturisation. It also developed the ‘Pentalock’ system, creating high-security products that ensure authenticity, tamper evidence, and non-refillability. Additionally, it launched the ‘Green Valve’, a mono-material valve with a single component and material.
This new part, sustainable in its conception and reducing CO2 emissions in its production by 10%, was developed through the eco-design platform created by the Cádiz-based firm. This platform focuses on designing lighter parts made from a single material or other bio-based or recycled materials. The development also utilised the CO2 Tool, designed to calculate the carbon footprint of each product, based on the materials, solutions, or techniques used.
A Growing Subsidiary Since 2016
Behind these new solutions, tools, and processes is the innovation subsidiary of Torrent Group, named Torrent Innova, launched in 2016 to centralise all the group’s R&D activities, including engineering, design, products, laboratory, moulds, sustainability, and standardisation departments. In 2020, Torrent Lab, an “ideas laboratory” where the company collaborates with clients to shape the final project, was added to these departments. This innovation subsidiary is one of the group’s major initiatives to differentiate its closures and add value, with ongoing investments since 2016 to expand its facilities and equip them with new technologies and more personnel (the group currently comprises 26 people). “Innovation is a significant focus for the group, and compared to other companies in the sector, we have a notable team that matches companies three times our size. We are also in the upper range for industrial companies’ innovation intensity, with a budget of around 1.6-1.8% of the group’s sales,” says Eduardo Jiménez, Director of Torrent Innova.
R&D thus remains one of the pillars of the closure group, following a long-standing tradition. “Innovation was integrated into the production process when the group was founded. However, in 2015, we realised that production and product development could not be compatible, and Torrent Innova was created. Today, all of Torrent’s business comes from solutions that were once innovations, either in the product itself, decoration, or processes, and we continually improve our products,” he explains.
In recent years, one of these improvements has been the reduction in development times, a requirement from their clients, along with customisation of the parts, the ability to produce them in large volumes, and cost reduction. Technologies such as additive manufacturing and finite element virtual simulation have been incorporated into the process. These allow the reproduction of the behaviour of each component in a closure, minimising errors when moving into production, and optimising each part without losing functionality.
Development of a New Material: ‘Biocork’
In terms of innovation, sustainability has become an essential requirement, with the materials used playing a key role in the development process. For this reason, the company has recently opened a mechanical pre-consumer plastic recycling plant and is researching the development of new, mainly bio-based, materials. One example is ‘Biocork’, developed in collaboration with the University of Cádiz. “It is a bio-based polymer that incorporates cork powder, a by-product of our production process, which we have also added to the ‘Terra’ platform, made up of sustainable large-head cork stoppers,” explains Jiménez, who also hints at upcoming developments in new materials, both in terms of their origin and recyclability, as well as the use of by-products.
Thus, innovation forms a significant part of the annual investments made by the Cádiz-based group. However, the company continues to allocate substantial annual sums to increase its industrial capacity with projects such as the expansion of its subsidiary Cápsulas Torrent, specialising in aluminium parts, in Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz). The plant will expand to 25,000 m² of production space, with new production lines and high-efficiency injection machines set to be operational by mid-2025. The project also includes a new logistics warehouse and offices, all with a budget of €7 million.
