From an employee to an employer, from a yarn agent to a leading sustainable yarn manufacturer; it is a remarkable growth story of determination to do something different… RS Balagurunathan, a textile technologist who is the Founder & Director of Anandi Enterprises is doing commendable work in sustainable yarns be it organic, BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) or recycled yarns. Working as a supply chain partner of Levi’s and supplying yarns to C&A, M&S, etc., Anandi Enterprises, Tirupur is doing an annual business worth US $ 6 million (Rs. 35 crore) while also helping thousands of farmers to earn a decent livelihood and serving mother earth. In a recent interaction with Apparel Online, Balagurunathan got nostalgic, sharing in detail his efforts and the results achieved in his sustainable journey.
support to the farmers
A valuable customer from Tirupur, who is also a supplier for C&A, once asked Balagurunathan for organic in 2002. So he met top level management of C&A, who at that point of time were exploring sustainable products. The determination and vision shared by C&A inspired Balagurunathan and he too started thinking of the importance of sustainability. Now, his company Anandi Enterprises not only owns 6,000 spindles and is engaging another 20,000 spindles for conversion, but more than that it has associated with and changed the life of 3,500 farmers last year, 7,000 farmers of Warangal this year – a well-known cotton belt of India for BCI, and another 3,000 farmers in Salem for authentic organic cotton, a pure organic project with non-GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds. “We have plenty of training sessions with farmers about how to cultivate, with support coming to them through our technical team, who explain and team them up for the best practices – starting from soil testing to minimal and better use of water and fertilizers – updating them on banned chemicals and how to preserve helpful molecules in the soil. Our efforts have resulted into much better profits for the farmers, and commercial but sustainable products for us,” says Balagurunathan, who claims to be the first ever supplier to a biggest retailer in India of cotton produced under BCI.
Anandi Enterprises has introduced recycled OE coloured yarn up to 34s count and supplying fabric in knitted and woven at a very cheap price for domestic and exports. The company has capacity of 200 tonnes per month with major contribution of recycled yarn and it can convert it into fabric as per the demand.
Touched by how sustainable efforts are a win-win situation, Balagurunathan was motivated to explore more opportunities in sustainable textiles, which converted into one more initiative – ‘recycled yarn’ – and now the company is very closely associated with Levi’s, supplying them recycled yarn made by cutting waste collected from garment manufacturers of Tirupur. He claims himself as first person to run recycled cotton in ‘RING SPINNING’. Moving forward, the company has started supplying these unique sustainable yarns to Arvind Denim and is now exploring direct export opportunities as Sri Lanka has a good demand for such yarns. “Currently, we produce a yarn which is made from 60 per cent recycled cotton and 40 per cent recycled poly (pet bottles). This is a 100 per cent recycled product and is used as natural yarn dyed for knitted garments that one can see at stores of Levi’s. This unique yarn is eco-friendly and we are proud to be one of the partners in a larger effort to save the earth’s environment. We also have another US buyer for the same product, so it’s really encouraging,” says Balagurunathan.
While the company is reaping good results from its efforts today, the journey was full of challenges for the entire team of Anandi Enterprises, not only in the initial days but even today there are difficulties which make it tough to keep going on with the efforts which are ultimately for the benefit of everyone. “In the early days, awareness was the biggest challenge for us; we still remember how we went to the farmers in various villages and spent hours convincing them about organic and better cotton initiative. Those were really difficult days for us but now things are on track. We still organize training and awareness sessions, but on new developments,” adds Balagurunathan. Raising his concern further, he says, “One issue which has really marred the sincerity of sustainable efforts is of fake people/organizations making false claims of organic cotton. Weeding these people out of the system is not easy as testing labs for the organic cotton processes are only in Switzerland and Germany. These scrupulous people offer inorganic seeds in the name of organic at lower prices. In such conditions we try to explain to the manufacturer or user that what exactly is organic. BCI is more convenient and easy to work with for us as well as for the buyers as there is no scope of fake processess in it.”
A commercial success, the company enjoys a decent margin in its products, as sustainable products are still a niche due to less number of manufacturers and the demand is growing. According to Balagurunathan, the demand is coming from both the international as well as Indian market. “To promote ourselves, we are continuously participating in various fairs and exhibitions, and seeing the response, we are sure of at least 20 per cent growth in the current year. Last year, out of our total business, 60 per cent was from overseas market with rest coming from local market, so national as well international market has equal opportunities for us. Our own brand of recycled yarn ‘RECCA’ should prove a growth engine for us,” concludes Balagurunathan.
