Building processing plant | Focus switches from hemp in Saskatchewan to flax in South Carolina
A company that once intended to build a Saskatchewan processing plant to turn hemp into clothing fibre is heading to market using a different crop in a different geography.
Naturally Advanced Technologies Inc. (NAT) has signed commercialization agreements for its Crailar Flax Fiber with major clothing manufacturers and retailers.
The company recently completed its final large-scale production and commercialization trial with Barnhardt Manufacturing, one of two outside firms it is using to manufacture its Crailar fibre.
The material produced by the plant will be used by a number of NAT’s commercialization partners.
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Georgia-Pacific has a three-year purchasing agreement to use the product.
Hanesbrands Inc. is making socks out of the Crailar fibre.
Levi Strauss and Company is working with NAT on a trial that would typically precede a large-scale production run. The amount of fibre used for the trial could produce 50,000 pairs of jeans.
Target is evaluating Crailar to make sheets, shower curtains, window treatments, table linens, decorative pillows and towels. Some of those products should be on Target shelves in the first half of 2013.
“The rubber is hitting the road a bit,” said Jay Nalbach, NAT’s chief marketing officer.
“I want to say it’s the quiet before the storm but the storm is already happening. We’re just so busy.”
NAT originally intended to use the technology it developed in conjunction with Canada’s National Research Council at a processing facility in Craik, Sask., where hemp would be the primary feedstock. The project fell through when the company couldn’t get the provincial funding it was looking for.
The company is now solely focused on flax fibre. It is attempting to raise about $20 million to complete construction of its processing plant in Pamplico, South Carolina.
The facility is already being used for the decortication portion of the production process, along with the company’s pilot plant in nearby Kingstree, South Carolina.
NAT uses two toll processors to make Crailar fibre. Those plants should be producing 400,000 pounds of the material a week by the end of 2012.
Capacity will jump to one million pounds per week once the company’s facility in South Carolina is complete.
The product is sold in bales that are the same size and shape as cotton bales but don’t have to be ginned like cotton.
“What we deliver is ready to be spun,” said Nalbach.
The potential market for the product is huge because it is a substitute for cotton and the demand for natural fibre is growing exponentially.
“I’m kind of hesitant to say limitless but pretty much it borders on that,” said Nalbach.
The bottleneck is on the supply side. The company can’t get its hands on enough of the right type of flax fibre to fuel its soon-to-be million pound per week production capacity.
NAT’s production process requires retted material, straw that has been subjected to moisture in the air and ground at the time of harvest.
That causes decomposition and fungal action in the field where the straw lies on the ground.
“The outer woody part of the straw starts to crack, water gets in, bacteria or mold starts to form and basically the woody shive and the pith comes away from the straw,” said Nalbach.
Farmers in Western Canada don’t produce the type of straw the company needs. By the time flax seed is mature the plant has dried out, it is usually harvested under dry conditions and the stalks have become sturdy, requiring a more intensive retting process.
NAT is working on refining its production process so that it doesn’t need fully retted material.
“If we were able to crack that nut on the residual straw that’s left over from the (flax) oil industry in Canada, then it would only make sense that we open up a facility there,” said Nalbach.
In the meantime, the company is contracting with growers across the U.S. to produce flax crops grown specifically for fibre.
To produce the best quality of fibre, growers are encouraged to harvest their crops during the middle of blooming. In a state like Oregon where Nalbach lives, that would take place in late May, leaving the crop to lay on the ground during the rainy month of June.
Nalbach said flax can be grown nearly everywhere. The trick is to find a place with the ideal harvesting conditions conducive to the retting process. The company is scouring North America looking for such production regions.
