Factory Talk: Customers push for change
Based in one of China’s main cotton-producing regions, Hebei Province, Blue Diamond is a denim fabric brand owned by Xingtai H&J Textiles. Its factory, near the city of Xingtai in the south of the province, carries out spinning, dyeing, weaving and finishing and now specialises in the production of Blue Diamond denim.
The factory currently employs 1,200 people across its four workshops and produces three million metres of denim fabric per month. It houses five lines of rope-dyeing equipment, plus heat-setting and coating lines. Its looms are rapier weaving machines imported from Belgian technology manufacturer Picanol.
At the Xingtai site, Blue Diamond also has its own laboratory, and a wastewater treatment plant with the capacity to treat 3,000 tonnes of waste each day. The factory is ISO 9001 and Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified and is a user of fibre from the Global Organic Textile Standard and from the Better Cotton Initiative.
“Customers such as American Eagle Outfitters and Levi’s have pushed Blue Diamond to innovate and improve,” says Sasha Lee, a sales merchandiser at the denim company. “We have other North American and European customers who do this too, but these two stand out.”
