One in four bottles of spirits consumed worldwide may not contain what it claims to. According to latest estimates, counterfeit and illicit products in the global spirits market range from 25% to 40% of total consumption¹, translating into billions in annual sales and tax revenue losses. Moreover, according to the World Health Organization, 21% of all alcohol consumed globally falls outside any form of government oversight, being illegally imported, counterfeited, or otherwise untraceable.
For this reason, Guala Closures, a global leader in specialty beverage and pharmaceutical closure solutions, has developed MAGNEX: a closure for premium spirits manufactured through EMF (Electromagnetic Forming) technology. The process applies high-velocity magnetic pulses to form aluminium directly around a mould, producing complex geometries, micro-engravings and three-dimensional textures that cannot be reproduced through conventional aluminium forming technologies. Every closure is co-designed with the brand, and closely integrates the design with the protection system.
Conventional protection measures — holograms, seals, tamper-evident systems — have proven structurally limited. Counterfeiters access the same technologies available on the open market and replicate them with ever-increasing sophistication. The closure — long considered a functional and aesthetic element of the bottle — is now being called upon to do more.
"Most anti-counterfeiting measures fight on the same technological ground as the counterfeiters. EMF changes that equation. The geometries and textures we achieve with MAGNEX are physically impossible to reproduce through standard embossing or metallisation, which means the design itself becomes part of the protection mechanism" commented Andrea Tassisto, Group Industrial & Technical Directorat Guala Closures.
The closure combines an EMF-formed aluminium outer shell — a highly sustainable and infinitely recyclable material — with an inner component that can also be produced using recycled plastics, reducing the use of virgin resources. Paired with anti-refilling valves and tamper-evident systems, it delivers multi-layered protection in a single unit. Production takes place at Guala Closures' Gartcosh facility in Scotland, currently the only plant in the closures industry equipped with industrial-scale EMF lines.