From the Los Llanos de la Estación Industrial Park in Zuera to all of Spain and Europe, that is the path taken by tens of millions of bottles that leave the Aragonese company Aragonesa de Mateados S.L. every year. This is explained by José Cubeles, one of the two brothers who run this company, a leader in the decoration of glass bottles at the continental level.
Aragonesa de Mateados has a long history, as the company was founded in 1997 when the Cubeles family ventured into this project without any special ties to the sector. However, they embarked on the adventure, and nearly 30 years later, they are a leading firm with virtually no competition.
There are several reasons for such dominance in the sector. These reasons include the quality and precision of their production, the speed of execution, and their ability to adapt to each order by providing innovative technical solutions. This is due to the technological development they have carried out over these three decades, as they have conceived, designed, and manufactured the machinery they use for their operations. In this machinery, productivity issues are valued, but sustainability has also been taken into very careful consideration. Their techniques minimize the carbon footprint, ensure the recyclability of glass is unaffected, and their inks are free of heavy materials, having passed European regulatory controls.
To achieve all of this, the company is characterized by its constant investment in innovation and development. As a result, they currently possess unique machinery designed to fully automate their workflow and diversify the different types of decoration they apply to glass bottles intended to hold wines, beers, liquors, or oils.
One of those decorative types is the frosting that gives the company its name. Frosting is a chemical process applied to glass to eliminate its shine and make it matte, giving it a fresher and more elegant appearance. This chemically applied procedure completely alters the overall look of the bottles, but it is not the only way to modify them. They can also be painted in practically any imaginable shade to change their original appearance, which is always brown, green, or blue-transparent.
Thus, both with frosting and painting, Aragonesa de Mateados changes the entire appearance of the bottles. But once this is done, it becomes necessary to identify the products they will contain and the brands that will market them. Therefore, in the warehouses of Zuera, they also apply two special procedures to include legends or images on the glass. One method is screen printing, applicable to cylindrical bottles, and the other is pad printing, designed for containers of any other shape.
Every client who contacts the company has this range of technical possibilities at their disposal, along with a design department to materialize the image of each project. The ultimate goal is nothing less than to create the most attractive and representative object possible for that brand, so it captivates both on the shelves of department stores and in delicatessen shops. Because these bottle decoration processes are being applied to exclusive liquors or exquisite oils, but also to wine and beer brands present in large retail outlets.
The combination of different techniques offered by the company based in Zuera is visible in countless bottles. In recent campaigns, it has produced up to 70 million bottles annually for hundreds of Spanish clients and more than 50 European companies. Although they have not yet reached their limit, their facilities of over 11,000 square meters and the technology they possess offer a production capacity of 100 million bottles per year.
The fact is that brands from around the world have turned to their services. Some of them are as renowned as the Vega Sicilia wineries or the iconic French liquor company Pernod Ricard. Currently, there is no real competition in terms of volume or quality in Spain or practically anywhere on the European continent. However, economic reasons related to logistics and the transportation of empty bottles mean that a very high percentage of their production is distributed throughout the Iberian Peninsula and southern Europe, primarily to France and Italy.
Nevertheless, bottles have left their warehouses in Zuera for other destinations, even across the Atlantic. And they have not only exported bottles; their special machinery has also been sold to a Chilean company, which has nearly become a replica of Aragonesa de Mateados in Latin America.
