Textiles has been a tough business in the U.S. for a long time. Nobody knows that better than the Zaslow family. So their newest project, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) line of organic cotton bedding called American Blossom Linens, is something to keep a close eye on.
The Zaslows founded ATD-American, a distributor of bulk institutional items from bedding to bath linens to clothing for customers such as government agencies, dormitories, hospitals, hotels and resorts. “Our family has been in textiles for a long time, since 1931,” said company President Robert Zaslow. “We subsequently entered into manufacturing in the 1980s after the existing textile mills of the time demonstrated they could not consistently provide the service and quality that our customers required.”
They were able to grow through acquisition when competitors were declining, when Thomaston Mills of Georgia, another producer of bedding and bath linens that dates back to 1899, went bankrupt in 2001. “The U.S. textiles trend then was to either shut down or offshore,” Zaslow said. “Our family bought Thomaston and addressed their problem of focusing on the retail market’s ‘race to the bottom.’ We bought them and focused them strictly on institutional sales, that is, the hospitality (hotels, resorts, cruise lines, et al…) and healthcare markets. It was a great opportunity to take over a great facility and a great workforce.”
The two companies share a headquarters in Wyncote, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, and they also share resources and positioning. “We found a lot of customers in the hospitality market that want higher quality, items that are better able to handle the frequent and rigorous commercial laundering process,” explained Zaslow. “So we’ve focused on that, and we also doubled down on our U.S. presence with our new South Carolina finishing plant that does our bleaching and dyeing . We’ve focused on vertical integration.”
The South Carolina plant also gave the company a sustainability platform. “Our real message is that we’re faster, better, and greener than imports,” said Zaslow. “We carry a huge inventory of raw materials and finished products in our factories to provide quick turnarounds that import competition cannot. Our products are a much more consistent, brighter shade of white than imports, and in addition the wastewater from our finishing plant is so clean that it is used by local farmers for crop irrigation with the direct oversight of stringent American environmental laws. No overseas manufacturer can say that.”
Source: www.forbes.com