Retraced and AM enable ‘farm-to-fashion’ traceability
German supply chain management platform Retraced and Karachi-headquartered, vertically integrated denim manufacturer Artistic Milliners (AM) have joined hands to support the digitisation of over 500 Pakistan-based farmers’ cotton supply chains, as part of the Milliner Cotton Initiative (MCI), first launched in 2019.
Using Retraced’s blockchain technology, the two partners will work together on what a press release described as a “farm-to-fashion” project, which will allow for the tracing and real-time tracking of cotton as it journeys from field to finished garment in a reportedly uninterrupted, digitally connected chain.
In practice, farmers in Pakistan’s Rahim Yar Khan region will be provided with a mobile application designed to help them tag their cotton sowing, picking and subsequent shipment to ginners, who will also have access to the app. Each ginner will then “digitally discern” between the different shipments, in order to make an assessment of the quality of cotton picked.
Following this, the ginner will send the tagged cotton to AM’s spinning, dyeing, weaving and cut-make-trim facility, where the cotton thread will be made into denim fabric and apparel for the mill’s brand clients.
Crucially, brands will then be able to investigate each finished article’s digital fingerprint to evaluate production values and standards, as well as relay this information to end consumers, who are increasingly interested in learning more about practices surrounding the sourcing and manufacturing of their purchases.
Co-founder and chief executive of Retraced, Lukas Pünder, commented: “Transparency in cotton supply chains is a long overdue and necessary basis for ethical supply chain management, environmental sustainability and circularity. Often, cotton from up to 1,000 farmers from different continents are mixed in one single pair of jeans.
“Traceability is an industry-wide challenge and only with a platform that connects everyone can we address that. Alongside AM’s MCI project, we are implementing real-time fibre tracing the way it should be - from the bottom up, following the natural flow of the material.”
AM chief executive, Omer Ahmed, added: “Transparency and accountability across the supply chain are the need of the hour and something we at AM take seriously. Our ambition is to have complete traceability from farm to fashion.
“We are working hand in glove with Retraced to launch a traceability interface which is user-friendly and one which we hope will eventually become the most widely adopted by our fellow suppliers, as well as our brand partners.”
Image: Unsplash. Credit: Jess Hutcheson
