The story of Ahmedabad-based manufacturer of sustainable denim and other top SMB stories of the week
From the story of Ahmedabad-based manufacturer of sustainable denim fabrics to Reliance Retail's talks to buy stakes in Naturals Salon & Spa, here’s what SMBStory covered this week.
Heard of sustainable denim fabric? Ahmedabad-based is a fabric manufacturer that many international denim brands rely on to produce 'sustainable' products.
Vishal Fabrics
Did you know that a single pair of denim jeans needs over 1,500 litres of water to be produced? The extensive use of a natural resource like freshwater for manufacturing denim is a primary reason why brands are focussing on sustainability.
For international denim brands, being sustainable has now become central to their identity.
Founded in 1985, the Ahmedabad-headquartered Vishal Fabrics is a manufacturing and fabric processing unit that produces sustainable denim fabrics with a dyeing capacity of 80 million metres per annum and a processing capacity of 105 million metres per annum.
Not only does it supply sustainably-manufactured denim to local distributors for white label products, but it also supplies to brands such as Levi’s, Lee, Tommy Hilfiger, Zara, Calvin Klein, and H&M.
“We have a liquid discharge effluent treatment plant, which helps reuse 70 to 75% of water used in denim manufacturing. We end up using only 20 to 25%,” says Vinay Thadani, CEO, Vishal Fabrics, in a conversation with SMBStory.
The firm has also been optimising its thermal energy plant as well as setting up solar rooftop panels and a solar plant.
“This could cater to 30 to 45% of our power requirements,” says Vinay.
Other top picks of the week:
Reliance Retail to buy stake inNaturals Salon & Spa
Reliance Retail plans to enter the salon business and is in talks to buy a 49% stake in Chennai-based Naturals Salons & Spa.
On this development, C K Kumaravel, CEO of Naturals Salon & Spa, told YourStory, "The talks are in the nascent stage." However, he refused to share any details on this development.
Kumaravel took to LinkedIn to share, "Reliance Retail is yet to acquire the 49% of Naturals' stake." He also said, "The multinational conglomerate is about to enter the salon industry. This is the largest turn in Naturals' history. And there is going to be huge growth from the total of 700 salons, there will be an increase of 4-5 times. We'll be witnessing the tremendous changes in the Naturals Salon & Spa over the upcoming years."
Impact of National Logistics Policy on MSMEs
The word 'logistics' may mean a number of different things. However, logistics can be summed up thus: RRR. This stands for 'Right Product, Right Place, Right Time', which are the goals of every logistical operation.
Logistics, as an industry, acts like the nervous system in the human body, which links organs responsible for diverse and equally important tasks. A person whose nervous system suffers a malfunction cannot function properly on the whole. Similarly, a country’s ability to function as a whole is impaired when the logistics sector fails.
Successive administrations have made attempts to alleviate the constraints of the logistics industry. These initiatives have been cross-sectoral, concentrating on numerous logistics business facets. However, they have not been as successful as anticipated, resulting in the industry’s poor performance.
Now the Indian government has developed the 'National Logistics Policy 2022' in an effort to increase the industry’s efficiency and resilience.
Edited by Swetha Kannan