While many view textiles as a sunset industry, this 40-year old mill has continued to reinvent itself so that it continues to create value to its customers.
L.V.W. Group Co., Ltd. provides value in terms of product quality, pricing and the level of service it delivers.
The company does circular knitting and 100% cotton remains its champion product.
“Being a textile mill is like running a restaurant. We have to keep adapting ourselves to meet what our customers want. So daily adaptations and daily communication with our customers is what we are really strong at,” said Vitaya Likittanawong.
“Customers choose us because we are able to respond to their urgent needs, and we are able to respond to their costing requirements as well.
Helping to Change the Industry’s Image
Over the past five years, the company has focused on making its products more sustainable.
“Being a textile mill is like running a restaurant. We have to keep adapting ourselves – sometimes daily – to meet what our customers want.”
“There’s a lot of talk that textiles is a very polluting industry. We have to reduce our carbon footprint and at the same time, we want to offer our customers sustainable materials and help make the environment better. Our aim is to be a very sustainable company.
“We have invested a lot of research and development in reducing the water and energy consumption. We’ve upgraded our machines to those that use useless water,” said Mr. Likittanawong.
L.V.W. Group is also using solar panels and solar energy now contributes up to 20 percent of its energy requirements.
“We are selling a lot of products to U.S. brands so we needed to get into the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol® fast. By being part of this program it gives our customers confidence that we are very conscious about our supply chain so that in the end they trust us.” he said.
Controlling Quality
Quality starts with the raw materials. The final product is usually not much better than the materials it’s made from.
“The number one reason that we use U.S. cotton is that we found that we could improve our efficiency during production due to the better quality of the fibers.
“And the second thing that we like about U.S. cotton is that it creates value to our end customers in terms of hand feel and appearance. And thirdly, with U.S. cotton there’s very little to no contamination.
“The price might be a little bit higher but the lack of contamination means that we don’t need to deal with contamination issues after the production is completed. That means that defect rates will go down significantly. This actually makes it even more even more cost effective to use U.S. cotton. So it creates value for both us as a supplier and also to our end customers as well,” said Mr. Likittanawong.
Brands are increasingly asking for U.S. cotton yarns and fabrics, not only in the U.S. but around the world.
“With what CCI is doing in Thailand, there is a great awareness of U.S. cotton locally here as well. So a lot of local brands are actually preferring to use U.S. cotton for their products and also in other Asian countries.
“We supply to many garment companies in Southeast Asia, East Asia and also Central America. A lot of customers are actually requesting U.S. cotton now because it adds value to their products,” he said.
Ultimately it comes down to creating products that are high quality, sustainable and transparent – and backing them with excellent service.
“A lot of things change… technology changes and markets change, but I think the demand for 100% cotton apparel will always be there, even 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years from now,” said Mr. Likittanawong.
Email: info@lvwgroup.com
Tel. +66 3431-1584 | lvwgroup.com
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
