Footwear · Iberia · 2024
Performance footwear brand
The cork midsole delivered rebound comparable to EVA at equivalent density, held its profile through the full wear test, and shipped with batch-level traceability to the Portuguese cork forest of origin.
- Rebound
- EVA-comparable
- Wear test
- 800 km, no profile loss
- Density
- 180 kg/m³
- Traceability
- Forest-of-origin per batch
Challenge
Develop a midsole compound that delivers EVA-comparable rebound, holds up to 800 km of running wear, and carries a credible single-origin sustainability story.
Approach
Working alongside the brand's R&D team, we calibrated a fine-granulate blend (0.5–2 mm) at 180 kg/m³ bonded with a polyurethane-free elastomer. The blend was pressed into prototype midsoles and tested by athletes across an 800 km wear protocol.
Outcome
The cork midsole delivered rebound comparable to EVA at equivalent density, held its profile through the full wear test, and shipped with batch-level traceability to the Portuguese cork forest of origin.
The brand's product team had spent two years exploring bio-based midsole alternatives. Most candidates failed on rebound; a handful matched the rebound but failed within 200 km of wear. They came to us looking for a material that could survive the full athlete-validation protocol and ship with documentation strong enough to put on the product page.
Our blend bonded a fine cork granulate with a polyurethane-free elastomer at 180 kg/m³. The first prototypes were handed to a small panel of distance runners and run for 800 km in three different climates. The midsole returned with negligible profile loss and rebound that the panel rated indistinguishable from the brand's EVA reference.
The product launched with the cork's region of origin printed on the inside of the tongue.
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