Just Drinks Excellence Awards 2025: Guala Closures

In an exclusive conversation with Just Drinks, Andrea Lodetti, CEO of Guala Closures, discusses the company's vision for the future of beverage closures, emphasizing its commitment to innovation and sustainability. He highlights how Guala Closures is adapting to changing market dynamics and consumer preferences through tailored solutions and advanced technologies. Recently recognized as a winner of the 2025 Just Drinks Excellence Awards in the Environmental and Product Launches categories, Guala Closures is setting new standards in the beverage closure industry.

Andrea Lodetti: At Guala Closures, our vision is to shape the future of sustainable and safety closures by combining over 70 years of expertise with the innovation and global reach of an international group. With our extensive technology knowledge, a robust international presence, a broad product range, and strong commitment to creating value for customers, stakeholders, and communities, Guala Closures is poised to make a meaningful impact in the market. Thanks to our global presence and in-depth understanding of local markets, we are able to stay close to our customers and address their unique needs across the globe, ensuring tailored solutions and exceptional service.

Andrea Lodetti: The development of the Prestige product range at Guala Closures was inspired by the company's dedication to offering customized, sustainable, and high-quality solutions that meet the unique needs of their clients. Prestige Guala Closures exemplifies the company's approach to innovation, focusing on blending aesthetics, design, and functionality. This is achieved through the careful selection of fine materials and the use of cutting-edge production technologies, ensuring a visual impact that is unparalleled in the market.

By offering a wide range of shapes, materials, and decorations, Guala Closures is able to create tailor-made products that enhance each brand’s distinctive identity. The integration of advanced R&D expertise ensures that these closures not only meet the aesthetic demands of the clients but also fulfill the highest standards of quality, safety, and environmental responsibility. 

The Prestige range reflects Guala Closures’ commitment to continuous innovation, where exceptional design and functionality are harmonized to create premium products that stand out in a competitive market.

Andrea Lodetti: Our commitment to innovation is reflected in our 7 dedicated R&D centres, where we focus on advanced materials, cutting-edge security features, and smart closure technologies that can meet and even anticipate market needs. At the same time, we draw inspiration from our rich heritage, leveraging decades of expertise in closure solutions, to continuously refine and enhance our products. This unique combination of tradition and innovation allows us to set new industry standards, offering our customers state-of-the-art closures that ensure product integrity, sustainability, and premium brand differentiation.

Andrea Lodetti: Sustainability is a core pillar of our long-term strategy. One of our key challenges is reducing our environmental footprint while maintaining the highest product performance and quality standards. Just to give an example, in 2024 our Scope 1&2 emissions decreased by 15% if compared to 2023.

Our Sustainable Together 2030 program summarizes the approach in this field: we integrate sustainability into every aspect of our business strategy, balancing innovation with environmental and social responsibility.

We also had our targets validated through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which provides a science-driven framework to cut greenhouse gas emissions across operations and supply chain. By setting validated targets, we are ensuring our business aligns with global climate goals and actively contributes to a lower-carbon future. Additionally, we achieved the EcoVadis Gold Medal, which proves our comprehensive sustainability approach, covering environmental, ethical, and social responsibility. This recognition strengthens our relationships with stakeholders by demonstrating our commitment to sustainable business practices.

Andrea Lodetti: Over the coming years, the beverage closure industry will be shaped by sustainability, digitalization, and evolving consumer preferences. We are seeing a growing demand for low impact materials, driven by both regulatory initiatives and consumer awareness. These changes require closures that not only preserve product freshness but also enhance convenience and overall user experience.

Our R&D efforts are focused on designing solutions that support these emerging trends, tailored to meet the specific needs of the regions where we operate. At the same time, consumers are increasingly seeking greater personalization and authenticity in their beverage choices. Exotic flavours and premiumization are becoming more relevant, and closures play a key role in brand differentiation. In response, we are focusing on lightweight, cost-efficient solutions for Asia, high-end aesthetics with natural fillers and smart closures with NFC and QR technologies that enhance engagement and traceability.

Additionally, we maintain our traditional focus on cutting-edge anticounterfeiting technologies, ensuring authenticity and exclusivity for prestigious brands. Finally, we are conceiving plastic-free or nearly plastic-free closures to meet the growing demand for easily recyclable solutions.

Andrea Lodetti: In 2024 the focus on production structures enhancement and process synergies have allowed an improvement in profitability quality and service level. We will continue to focus on business development in all segments, with new customers acquisition and implementation of operational efficiencies. 

A key part of our strategy is the recent acquisition of the international company Astir Vitogiannis, which strengthens our position in the beer and soft drinks segments. This acquisition allows us to diversify our portfolio and serve a broader range of customers that adopt crown closures solutions for their products.

We also recently inaugurated a new greenfield manufacturing facility in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of its fastest-growing markets. Located in Lagos, the plant will serve West African markets and supply anti-counterfeiting safety closures for spirits bottles, including innovative features developed specifically for this region.

Furthermore, the opening of our new facility in Scotland marks a significant step in reinforcing our presence in the premium spirits industry. This facility will bring us closer to key whisky producers, enhancing our ability to serve the region and expanding our market footprint in this high-demand sector.

Andrea Lodetti: Thank you.