Qurkies | About Cork

Qurkies are made of a beautiful natural product; the cork bark. Cork is actually just tree bark, but very special. A mature cork tree grows about two Qurkies per day.

The cork bark is stipped off the tree like a jacket, which grows back due to a unique process. The tree is not cut down! A cork tree can be harvested for the first time at the age of 25. After that only once in every 9 years. 

A stripped cork tree absorbs 4x more CO2 then a not used cork tree. Cork forests absorb 14M TON CO2 per year. They are therefore called ‘The lung of the Mediterranean’.

Harvest of cork is very delicate and solely done by hand. Cork is one of the few examples of fully sustainable forest exploitation. They are  economic sustainable, due to the high market value of cork.

From the cork bark, everything is used. The core part is used for bottle stoppers. Qurkies are made from the waste and leftovers of this process. All remaining dust is used as energy for the factory.

Cork is well recyclable, but collection points are still scarce. The cork tree is very well protected. It is the National tree of Portugal, who owns about 80% of the worlds cork and is also the production site of Qurkies.