How Traceability Takes Cotton Supply Chains from Opaque to Transparent

Cotton supply chains have traditionally been highly opaque, but this is changing as companies adapt to a growing demand for transparency.

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The historic lack of visibility stems from the cotton supply chain’s complexity, as the fiber changes hands multiple times from field to final product. Add the incentive to chase lower costs and the pressure of quick manufacturing turnarounds, and it creates a ripe environment for substitutions to occur as companies either accidentally or knowingly try to pass off one type of cotton for another, explained executives from Oritain and Supima during Sourcing Journal’s “Is Your Cotton Safe? Pinpointing Supply Chain Risks” webinar.

“Cotton is a commodity market, and so that means that inevitably, there’s a drive to source cotton at the lowest cost,” said Kate Jones, senior science advisor at Oritain. “That means it’s vulnerable to potentially unethical practices, and that’s both on the cultivation side and also in the processing side.”

But now, the industry is starting to “peel back the onion” on transparency as the repercussions of getting sourcing wrong rise, said Jason Thompson, vice president of brand development at Supima. For one, legislation on forced labor and due diligence—including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA)—requires companies to have a better grasp on where their goods come from. Consumers are also asking more questions and becoming more skeptical of claims, requiring proof that products are legitimate.

Providing authentication of product provenance, Oritain uses forensic testing to identify environmental markers specific to where plants or animals were grown or raised. Everything from the climate to the soil leaves behind trace elements, creating a unique profile that Oritain calls an Origin Fingerprint.

Oritain has taken samples from farms worldwide covering about 90 percent of all cotton growing regions, allowing it to compare cotton in fiber, yarn or textile forms to this reference database of Origin Fingerprints to determine if it is a match. Unlike DNA testing that is focused on verifying that a product is a certain type—such as Pima instead of Upland cotton—Oritain’s tests tell where something is grown.

Ideally, testing happens throughout the supply chain to weed out issues before a product is finalized, preventing companies from losing sales on fully manufactured goods. Although Oritain’s verification alone is not a “silver bullet” in contesting a detention from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) since it does not provide insight into labor practices and how goods were manufactured, it is a “critical piece of compliance” in proving provenance, explained Jones.

Supima, the brand for American-grown Pima cotton, has had a longstanding partnership with Oritain to verify that products licensing its trademark are actually made with materials that originated in the U.S. Per Thompson, the benefit of Oritain is that the testing is based on the fiber’s inherent qualities does not rely on additives like markers. Together, they have been able to build farm- or state-specific sourcing and verification programs, allowing brands and retailers to have a direct relationship with cotton growers.

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Last year, Supima introduced the AQRe Project (which stands for Authenticity, Quality and Responsibility), combining Oritain’s authentication with TextileGenesis’ transactional traceability. Both panelists noted that while there is a place for chain of custody tracking, there is a need for physical authentication to validate the data entered in these systems. Otherwise, Jones noted, it could lead to a “garbage in, garbage out system.”

“[TextileGenesis is] so much more elevated than a paper-based system transactionally,” said Thompson. “But again, it’s only as good as the information that is being fed.”

Having a clear picture of a product’s origin enables companies to more confidently talk about sourcing and sustainability claims without having to worry about greenwashing accusations. Some of Oritain’s customers are deploying consumer-facing communications like QR codes that tell the story of how something was made. “It’s not just about compliance and regulation; it is about trying to have a more sustainable sourcing and supply chain and actually telling that story [to] consumers as a point of difference,” said Jones. “Customers are really engaging in that story, with both their purchase and also their brand loyalty.”

Aside from supporting compliance and product claims, transparency also adds value to products, which has an upstream impact—all the way to the farmers that grow the cotton. “If we can shift the discussion towards value and away from cost, then we can see a benefit throughout the entire supply chain,” said Thompson.

Watch the webinar to learn more about:

• What has traditionally held the industry back from traceable supply chains, and why that is changing
• How Supima and Oritain have worked together to bake traceability into Supima-branded fibers
• Why non-compliant cotton is still circulating, and the steps companies can take to protect themselves
• The remaining hurdles in scaling traceability to the entire cotton growing world
• How traceability and sustainability intersect

Click here to watch.

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