For years, cotton producers have been asked to look for the Seal of Cotton logo on shirts, underwear, sheets and towels to ensure they are made from U.S.-grown cotton. I've been asked for it.
The logo is less common now, as the U.S. textile and apparel industry has been decimated by imports from the People's Republic of China and other countries that see no need to promote the use of cotton fabrics.
But thanks to relatively new technology that helps clothing retailers, consumers and others determine not just the country of origin of raw materials used in fabrics, but also the region, county, district, or even region, identity Loss may be changing. The farm where it was grown.
technology development
The technology was developed by Fibertrace Technologies, a company co-founded by David Statham, an innovative cotton grower in New South Wales, Australia. He and his CEO of Fibertrace, Shannon Mercer, spoke at the Mid-South Farm and Gin Show in early March.
“When you talk to farmers, they think once they spin the cotton and ship it out, it's all over, and that may have been true in the past,” Mercer said. “But the value you bring to your brand, especially when it comes to what's going on with the law, is that by telling the story of the good work you're doing on your farm, you can actually start to regain market share. is.”
Fibertrace was founded in 2018 after Statham and Mercer began thinking about how to better tell the story of the regenerative farming practices that Statham and his wife, Danielle, use in their farming operations.
“We recognize that even the most conscious suppliers cannot guarantee complete control of their supply, and after recognizing the emerging debate around supply chain transparency, we have teamed up with a team of supply chain experts. and our own foresight led us to build FibreTrace,” said Mercer.
traceability
Consumers have become increasingly interested in where their food comes from and how farmers grow it. European Union member states and other countries have issued regulations regarding what can be used in food.
“We're now starting to see that in textiles,” Mercer says. “When people buy clothing that says 100% Made in the USA, they want to be sure that the cotton is from the USA.
“At the same time, some big legislation was enacted, especially in this country, including UFLPA,” he said. (The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is a U.S. law that prohibits the import of products manufactured using forced labor in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.)
“That's why we've seen the integration of traceability solutions in the past six months and why brands are starting to understand traceability and how they can start working further downstream,” he said. .
“What we're seeing through this legislation is not only do they need to know the proof of origin, but they also need to know what area it came from. can differentiate themselves and create the value their brands need.”
Under UFLPA, an estimated 631 brands have been suspended from shipping, he said. “If you don't know where your brand is, that's a very expensive process.” Where does cotton come from? ”
Fiber Trace Applications
The technology FibreTrace uses starts with paper and is the same technology used in U.S. banknotes and other currencies. When Statham and Mercer began looking for technology that could be used to verify the origin of cotton, the International Cotton Association approached them with inventor Paul Stenning, who was looking at ways to transfer tracking technology from paper to textiles. Introduced.
The next hurdle was “how to make it from paper to fiber, endure the various processes that occur in manufacturing, and be able to trace its path through the supply chain to warehouse, to garment, to recycling, to recycling. “Reuse,” he said.
“We started with cotton and then moved to all natural and synthetic fibers. From there, the business accelerated to the point where we tracked our own cotton in Australia. And now we're here in the U.S. This is used to mark cotton.
FiberTrace technology was applied to 15,000 bales of cotton in 2023 at Cherokee Gin and Cotton Company in Center, Ala., and Graves Gin Corporation in Rector, Ark., with luminescent pigments at its core. identification process.
Pigments reflect spectroscopic analysis specific to the fibers treated with them. “What I'm trying to describe is like a firecracker exploding at night,” Mercer said. “When you see different colors and that color fades back to black, you measure the distance and time it takes for that light to disappear. Then you can narrow that range down to find out what the individual signature of that fiber type is. can be determined.”
FibreTrace uses scanners that can be placed throughout the supply chain to measure in real time that fiber is still fiber. Throughout the process, you can also tell if anything has been mixed into the original dough.
“We've lost that signal. If you put it in a cotton gin here in the United States, you'll get a 100% signature. When you're in China, you're in Brazil or India, you mix it up, that signal is 100 %. We can alert brands that something has happened, and they can respond early and resolve the issue before more than $30 million worth of products are shipped. Masu.”
