After a major fire that completely destroys the factory in Santa Maria de Lamas in 1944, which seems likely to cause irrevocable damage to the Amorim group’s business activities, the company is back in business within less than a year. The factory’s reconstruction, supported by the workers, was overseen by the company’s chairman, Henrique Amorim, who invested all the available capital at the time.
The warehouse in Abrantes is transformed into a factory for preparation of cork boards. This is the first step towards the vertical integration of production processes across different phases - production of raw material and production of cork - with quality control of the final product.
The Amorim family rents a small warehouse in Abrantes - next to Portugal’s biggest stretch of cork oak forest. At that time, Portugal, although the world's biggest cork producer, only processes about 5% of the raw material. The vast majority of the market is dominated by foreign entities. The family’s strategy aims to counteract this trend.
The family’s first company is incorporated - Amorim & Irmãos, Lda. This was the embryo of the universe of companies that is today Corticeira Amorim. The Amorim family’s second generation brought a new dynamism to the production of cork stoppers, and transformed the company into a leading force in the Portuguese cork industry.
The internationalisation process starts at the beginning of the 20th century by exporting cork to Brazil. Two children of António Alves de Amorim and Ana Pinto Alves emigrate to the other side of the Atlantic, and open two factories - one in São Paulo and another in Rio de Janeiro. During this period the exported cork was a semi-prepared raw material.