Oeneo has introduced a cork stopper, called Diam, made of cork flower treated with supercritical CO2 that guarantees there will be no "flavour" of cork. The innovation, developed through collaboration with the CEA (Atomic Energy Commission), is the result of years of R&D. Today, Oeneo is producing its stopper thanks to a sub-contracting agreement with a German industrial company who are in the process of building a new production unit in Spain, representing an investment of Euros 15M, which will have a capacity of 500M stoppers/year. The plant should be up and running mid-2005. With this new product Oeneo is targeting a niche estimated at a third of the world market of 20BN stoppers/year. The industrialists still have to be convinced to pay up additional costs of around 30%. It is estimated the stoppers will cost around Euros 100 per 1000.
