Twine Solutions amps up the sustainability ante for textile printing

Digital thread dyeing company Twine Solutions is turning up the ante in its sustainability efforts with its range of solutions.

The company has two main products – the system itself, the TS-1800, which is the world’s first digital thread and yarn dyeing system, and TDI inks that it designs, manufactures and develops for the system.

Twine Solutions Asia Pacific regional sales manager Andy Yarrow said, “The most important thing is, it’s waterless. Obviously, there’s now a huge focus on sustainability, and a huge focus on demand. Our most unique feature is the fact that we have a waterless dyeing process.

“Most people know that the textile industry is the second most polluting industry after oil, so we’re really focused on the sustainability element of it; it’s on-demand as well.”

With more people looking to streamline their processes and inventory, Yarrow said Twine Solutions can dye pretty much any colour on-demand, with no minimum order quantities.

“We have six patents awarded already and four pending, so we like to think we’re ahead of the game in terms of this technology and really moving the industry forwards,” he said.

“Earlier this year, there was a significant flood in Aceh, Indonesia and the flood went through a batik factory, resulting in all the rivers around the area turning red because of the dye. We don’t want to see pictures like that. So, our inks being waterless is a big factor.”

The story behind the company

Twine Solutions was founded around five years ago by two brothers, Erez and Alon Moshe, who both have profound experience in the digital printing business. When Erez was in a hotel, he noticed some nice embroidery with different colours on his bath towel and figured that there was an opportunity to create a dyeing system that dyed thread and yarn.

Working with Alon, who’s got a huge amount of experience in R&D, they then started to develop a system. Yarrow joined the business as the first employee outside of Israel in January, and is focused on driving the business in Asia, Europe, and starting to work in the US as well.

Twine Solutions focuses on three major applications – embroidery, knitting, and sewing.

“When we say knitting, it’s knitting of shoe uppers and that kind of application. We’re seeing some interest in woven labels as well, such as the label in the back of your sports shirts or the care labels in your garments,” Yarrow said.

“As for embroidery, we recently did an interesting embroidery application of a pumpkin for Halloween – the pumpkin embroidery got multiple colours dyed in one single thread of yarn. One of the nice things we can do with digital is that we can dye one single piece of yarn or single length of yarn in multiple colours. This is completely unheard of in our industry.”

Some of the major brands that use Twine Solutions include Gerber, Coats, and Delta Galil, amongst others.

“Delta Galil is our first customer in Israel and it recently developed a sport socks for Nike It developed a product that had a unique extract using our gradient features,” Yarrow said.

“We also have our first system being installed in China next week, at a Fortune 500 company. What they’re looking to do is reduce the time to market with data match samples. So, anytime a brand or company wants to match a certain colour, the process of getting that colour approved by sending away the Pantone colour or the CMYK reference, is quicker.

“It’s all about speed to market, inventory management, and making sure that we’re not harming the environment as well.”

Plans for success

Moving forward, Yarrow mentioned that Twine Solutions will continue to use its two-pronged approach to market – working with the brands and their manufacturing partners.

“A lot of companies want to be more sustainable, but they don’t know how, so we need to be leading them through that process. The interesting thing, from my perspective having come from the printing industry and spent the last few years in textiles as well, is that they all know where they need to be but putting that into practice is pretty difficult for them,” Yarrow said.

“We need to be the person who ties the brands and the manufacturing companies, as well as the apparel companies together. We also need to get the right partners on board as it’s important that we have credible partners to help us.

“What we see moving forward is a very bright future for Twine. the more companies we get on board with our technology, the more we can improve the industry and change the fibre of the digital textile industry.”

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