Most often cheaper quality cotton is passed off as Egyptian or Pima cotton despite the fact that they are labelled as 100 per cent pure cotton. Now, American Pima growers have found a solution. Supima, the not for profit marketing organisation that represents American Pima growers, has partnered with Oritain Global to provide testing to identify and verify the origin of Supima cotton, which is Pima cotton grown by licensed Supima-cotton companies.
Jason Thompson, Brand Development Manager, says they have been trying to find different solutions for the last 10 years. When a product bears the Supima trademark, they want to ensure the cotton is verified. Oritain will use scientific technology to measure the naturally occurring elements that exist within the cotton fibre, which is based on the geographical production area where the cotton is grown.
Grant Cochrane, Chief Executive of Oritain explains the unique fingerprint analysis identifies different levels of chemical attributes that are found in the product itself and enables the cotton to be verified against its claimed origin. The identification process is done by mapping the geographical region where the cotton is grown and identifying the trace elements in the soil, water and air.
About 85 per cent of the American Pima cotton grown in the US comes from California and the balance from Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. There are over 500 American Pima growers in the US whose extra-long-staple cotton sells for twice as any other US cotton.The advantage of the Oritain method is that it doesn’t need to apply any identifiers or tracers during the manufacturing or processing phases, which makes it a simple solution that measures what is naturally found in the fibre.
