Today a growing number of consumers are aware of quality, and in terms of apparel that means a soft hand feel, greater durability and made from natural fibers.
“Normally OE (open end) yarns use shorter fiber lengths, however we use longer fibers to raise the quality,” said Apinun Kongkiatkrai. Kongkiat Textile Co. Ltd. produces 200 tons of yarn per month and focuses on making high quality top dyed yarns. It produces both OE and Ringspun yarns. Further, the company has its own dyeing facility, in addition to its spinning mill.
Consumers also want products that are both sustainable and unique, which is raising the demand for innovative yarns and fabrics made from natural fibers. That prompted the Kongkiat to experiment with blending a variety of natural materials with the leading natural fiber – cotton – to create new products with big consumer appeal.
In addition, the company makes fancy yarns that blend natural materials with cotton.
“When customers ask us what cotton we use and we say ‘U.S. cotton’ they immediately trust our quality.”
“When the customer knits or weaves yarn made from these special blends the effect is very special,” said Mr. Kongkiatkrai, explaining that Kongkiat is a smaller mill that focuses on niche products.
Turning Natural Fibers into Premium Products
One premium product that Kongkiat Textile makes is Eri silk blended with cotton. The silk is sourced from India or some parts of China and is blended with high quality cotton and produces a yarn that is soft but also durable. The silk is considered a non-violent and sustainable silk since it does not require killing the moth to extract the fiber.
Kongkiat also blends cotton with kapok to create yarns that have heat retention properties.
In addition, the company has its own fiber processing facility where it takes locally sourced agricultural bio-waste and turns it into natural fibers. This includes fiber made from pineapple leaves, a byproduct of Thailand’s huge pineapple industry. They are also turning water hyacinth into fiber. Many of Thailand’s rivers are overgrown with water hyacinth so harvesting them and turning them into fiber has a dual benefit for the environment. Kongkiat is also working with banana fiber and is experimenting with sugar cane waste.
Using these domestic fibers not only supports new yarn developments, but it also supports small, local industries providing many people in Thailand with a living.
Sustainability that’s Backed by Transparency
“We have a closed loop partnership with garment factories where we take the cutting waste from the garment production and recycle it into fiber and blend it into our cotton yarn. We have a GRS certificate for this,” said Mr. Kongkiatkrai.
“We recently joined the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol® (the Trust Protocol). I think it’s a good move because it enables us to show our customers that the cotton we are using is actually sustainable. And the Trust Protocol also supports their need to show that their supply chain is not only sustainable, but more transparent.”
This is becoming even more important as new laws are requiring that brands provide supporting documentation to verify components of their supply chains.
“When customers ask us what cotton we use and we say ‘U.S. cotton’ they immediately trust our quality.
“Also the support team from U.S. cotton plays an important role in helping us solve problems and achieve better quality,” said Mr. Kongkiatkrai.
Email. sales@kongkiat.com | Tel. +66 2 463 6460 | www.kongkiat.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
