Atlantic Mills was founded on the concept of Italian color and beauty and the Japanese know how to control denim’s deep indigos and make it really beautiful and raw,” said Amrin Sachathep, explaining what makes his products stand out from the rest of the denim market.
Atlantic Mills built its denim business organically and then added backwards integration in 2014, purchasing spinning equipment from several companies that were exiting the industry. In 2017, Atlantic Mills in 2017 established a garment factory in Laos that could provide garments directly to its customers.
Around 15 years ago, Atlantic Mills went to Japan and met with one of the main dyeing companies who produces for all of the best mills in Japan.
“Atlantic Mills was founded on the concept of Italian color and beauty and the Japanese know how to control denim’s deep indigos and make it really beautiful and raw.”
“We set up our own rope dye machine made from Japan. We’re one of the only ones outside Japan that has this technology. And it’s here in Thailand.
Now our rope dye machine wasn’t the conventional kind because that was never our game. We expanded the Japanese rope dye to have four extra dye vats so it would be capable of having Italian inspiration on top of the Japanese system.
Innovation Backed by Quality Materials
Atlantic Mills takes its innovation and turns it into great products by supporting it by investing in using high quality raw materials.
“We buy better cotton than everybody else in denim. Denim typically uses shorter staple cotton, but we buy longer staples, which is normally used for fine count shirts.
“U.S. cotton has a lower percentage of short fibers. Few people take this analysis seriously, but short fiber percentage is a big thing for the strength of fabric. One of the reasons mills do a lot of combed yarns is because they want to get rid of the short fibers but they end up spending 20 percent more on the cotton costs. By buying cotton that’s good quality and has fewer short fibers you save money doing comb yarns,” said Mr. Sachathep.
About 40 percent of Atlantic Mill’s denim is combed, whereas most other mills only use combed yarns for denim shirting.
“We believe that there’s less waste when you use better cotton, and the quality of the product you produce is better as well. So the idea is that as you wear our denim, it actually looks better,” said Mr. Sachathep.
A Sustainability Story
Another thing that makes Atlantic Mill’s unique is that it develops denim that wears down well.
“We look at the longevity of the garment as being the sustainability story more than anything else. We’re not making disposable fashion. Our products are designed to last a long time.
“All of the cotton we use is traceable. That’s always been important to us. Most of our cotton comes from the U.S.,” he said.
With the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol®, Atlantic Mills has the data to show that the cotton they are using is grown using sustainable agricultural practices, as well as support for supply chain transparency.
“We have always looked to quality as a key part of making our products more sustainable. It helps reduce waste in production and at the consumer level,” said Mr. Sachathep.
Email. amrin@atlanticmills.co.th
Tel. +66 2 661 8687-93 | https://www.atlanticmills.co.th/
Certified Sustainable
The Trust Protocol is aligned with existing sustainability programs including the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. It brings quantifiable and verifiable goals and measurement to sustainable cotton production, and drives continuous improvement in six key sustainability metrics – land use, soil carbon, water management, soil loss, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy efficiency. The Trust Protocol is designed from the ground up to address the unique regulatory and larger farm growing environment in the United States.
How the Trust Protocol Works
The Protocol Consumption Management Solution (PCMS) starts at the gin when the participating producer’s cotton is ginned and each unique Permanent Bale Identification number (PBI) is attached. At this point we know the exact gin weight and can create an exact amount of Protocol Cotton Consumption Units, where one Protocol Cotton Consumption Unit is created for each kilogram of Protocol Verified Cotton. This important step provides absolute authentication of U.S. cotton origin, verifying against the USDA database.
Supply Chain Transparency
The PCMS harnesses blockchain technology through a powerful combination of the Trust Protocol platform and TextileGenesis™ system to deliver full supply chain transparency by recording and verifying the movement of U.S. cotton along the entire supply chain. This creates article-specific transparency for finished products that was not previously accessible to brands and retailers.
Trusted Third Party Certification
The Trust Protocol incorporates a comprehensive program of verification against Trust Protocol benchmarks, in the form of both second-party and independent third-party audits of grower performance through Control Union Certifications—the latter through allocated on-site visits.
Control Union Certifications has certified over 150 industry standards programs worldwide, including working as a key partner in the early development and piloting phases of Impact Claim Verification Protocol.
Learn More https://trustuscotton.org
The COTTON USA Advantage
- Family growers who are committed to working their fields sustainably and leaving them better for future generations.
- A long history of innovative harvesting and ginning technologies resulting in higher-quality cotton.
- One of the highest rates of adoption in the world for Precision Agriculture, which minimizes water and pesticide usage.
- U.S. farmers operate under voluminous, stringent, and enforceable regulations.
- A commitment to transparent partnership that is unmatched anywhere.
- One of the most comprehensive systems for monitoring and measuring all the key metrics involved in sustainability.
U.S. Cotton Facts
- 2/3 of U.S. cotton land uses only rain water
- U.S. cotton water use efficiency has improved by 79% over the past 35 years
- Cotton is carbon footprint neutral, meaning the plants remove more greenhouse gasses than production produces.
Sustainability Goals
The U.S. cotton industry is building upon the strong environmental gains already achieved over the past 35 years. The aim is to help members meet their current needs while making the world a better place for future generations.
Specific goals include:
- Reducing by 13 percent the amount of land needed to produce a pound of cotton fiber
- Reducing soil loss by 50 percent, in balance with new soil formation
- Increasing water use efficiency (more fiber per gallon) by 18 percent
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 39 percent
- Increasing soil carbon in fields by 30 percent
- Reducing energy to produce seed cotton and ginned lint by 15 percent
Learn More www.cotton.org
