Over two decades since its inception, GHCL has positioned itself as one of the major players for sheeting in India behind Welspun and Alok Industries, sharing space with Indo Count in the segment. A vertically integrated setup GHCL, owned by well-known industrialist Sanjay Dalmia, is catering mainly to the US market to brands/retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears, Macy’s, Walmart, Kmart, to mention a few and is now consciously making efforts to move forward both through own R&D and strategic tie-ups to deliver performance and has achieved many firsts on the way. Neeraj Jalan,Vice President-Home Furnishings – GHCL, shares with Apparel Online the future directions in performance sheeting…
As consumers worldwide are getting more conscious of their health and wellness, manufacturers too are gearing up to produce products which enhance the well-being of the consumers. “Presently, about 20 per cent of our business is of performance sheeting, which we hope to grow it up to 35-40 per cent in next 2-3 years time,” reveals Neeraj.
Retailers have been selling cotton, polyester and poly-cotton sheets for a long time, now consumers have started asking what a bed sheet can do for them in terms of enhancing their overall well being. Taking the clue GHCL has integrated well-being features and performances into the sheet. Features like anti-ageing, proper blood flow, Vitamin E application for skin to name a few are really picking up nowadays. “We have introduced sheets with anti-microbial treatment, which kills approximately 90 per cent bacteria and is made from 90 per cent cotton and 10 per cent Lyocel fibre. The anti-bacterial property is inherent and not given by the surface finish, therefore the property is everlasting and also increases the life of the product,” shares Neeraj, who is heading the home textile business for GHCL.
The other product, in performance category which GHCL manufactures, is seaweed sheet made with seashell fibres; the blend consists of 75 per cent cotton and 25 per cent seaweed fibre. Seaweed is actually an anti-oxidant agent that protects the body against free radical damage. “Of particular importance is that free radical damage accumulates with age, however with this seaweed sheet the impact of aging on the skin doesn’t come in; it makes you look younger by 10 to 15 years,” says Neeraj, who also claims to have technology for anti-dust, mites and allergies, which is again an entire range of differential products.
Growing in the performance domain, GHCL has recently procured license from a US based company for a fibre called Hologenix LLC, which is used for sports apparels by brands like Nike and Reebok. This unique fibre absorbs infra rays light which helps in increasing the oxygen flow in human skin. The other magnificent property of this fibre is that it helps in proper blood circulation and facilitates recovery of minor aches and injuries of the human skin. Another interesting license that GHCL has attained is from Perfect Fit, another American company for their exclusive fibre range. “We are exclusive licensee for them in US so they won’t be selling their sheet application products to anybody but us.”
Pro-active in forging tie-ups, GHCL has tied up with Standard Textiles, an American company for exclusive performance based technology in cross weave, which uses cotton yarns in the warps and textured filament yarns in the weft. “Now that cotton is getting costlier each day, with this technology we have a solution where the polyester is used on the weft so the most part of the body touches only cotton and the polyester is on the back of the sheet. It’s a simple care sheet and you don’t have to iron it at all. It’s like a value sheet. A Teflon sheet with same performance is available in the market for US $ 89-99, whereas this sheet is available for US $ 59-60 with this technology,” shares Neeraj.
A reversible sheet set representing different colours on each side is another first from the house of GHCL. “Already present in Macy’s we are trying to place it in other retail outlets as well,” avers Neeraj. The company has also tried new innovations in its fitted sheeting by giving elasticity so the sheet can fit on any size of the mattress.
With toplines of Rs. 900 crore, GHCL’s home textile business generates a turnover of Rs. 600 crore and spinning adds the balance Rs. 300 crore. In the last one year, the company has added capacities in its spinning and weaving. “By putting additional spindles our yarn capacity has increased by 10 tonnes per day.
We have added about 50 airjet looms which has taken our fabric production up by about 10,000 to 11,000 metres per day. In our stitching unit we added around 225 machines; now we have 500 machines,” informs Neeraj who is looking at 25 per cent growth YOY.
