Matesa Denim Proceeds Its Manufacture with an Environmentalist Approach
Founded in 2006, Matesa Denim started to provide high-quality fabric services to major brands and ready-made garment producers worldwide in a short period of time. Continuing its activities with the understanding of quality, trust, and service, Matesa Textiles has an annual fabric production capacity of approximately 24 million meters.
Among the recent projects of Matesa Textiles, which attaches great importance to environmentally friendly production; are renewable energy investments, sustainable, environmentally friendly, zero-waste production processes, and value-added fabric manufacturing.
We held an exclusive interview with Gökhan Erayman, Matesa Textiles Deputy General Manager, for this month’s issue of our magazine. Erayman, talking about the future plans of the company, expressed the following statements: ‘‘The most important target for us is to increase our foreign sales, obtain new markets abroad and provide foreign currency inflows to our country.’’
Can you please tell us about the progress of Matesa Textiles beginning from its establishment? According to what do you diversify your denim fabric product range?
Matesa Textiles was established in 1989 in Kahramanmaraş. Our product range includes open-end yarn, ring yarn, compact yarn, woven fabric, knitted fabric, and denim fabric, all of which are made of various kinds of fibers. We started to produce and sell denim fabric in 2006. Our annual manufacturing capacity is 24 million meters. We create our denim fabric range in line with the demands and needs of the market. In addition to basic fabrics like cotton and cotton elastane, we also produce fashion products using fibers such as viscose, linen, modal, tencel, and polyester. We are able to offer a wide range of colors to our customers. Dissimilar to standard denim fabrics, we are capable of producing coated, printed, rayon, dobby denim fabrics with special production techniques. We also have denim fabrics that provide touch and comfort through special finishing processes. Our certified fabrics manufactured using organic cotton yarn, recycled cotton yarn, and recycled polyester yarn are also included in our product range.
You are among the major denim manufacturers in Turkey. What is your factory’s share in annual exports in this area? Which countries do you export denim fabric to?
According to data for 2018, gathered by the Turkey Exporters Assembly, we are among the first thousand exporter companies in Turkey and, moreover, in the top 50 exporters in the manufacturing sector. Our 2018 export figure is approximately 31 million US dollars. The major part of our export operations is to Spain, Italy, and Morocco. Approximately 35 percent of our turnover consists of exports.
What are the factors that you pay attention in your R&D activities? What kind of projects do you carry out in regard to denim fabric production?
In R&D activities; sustainability, environmental issues, and human health are the most important factors that we pay attention to. We are working on new projects in subjects such as environmental and sustainable vegetal fibers, recovery of waste products that arise at the stage of yarn and fabric manufacturing, and recovery of dyes and chemicals. In addition to these, we also carry out technical fabric production studies in order to manufacture fabrics that possess characteristics such as antimicrobial, antibacterial, human health protective, and healing properties.
What kind of precautions do you take in dyeing processes in order not to harm the environment?
We started using ecological sulfur dye products three years ago. It does not harm the environment at all and you can use the dye repeatedly by filtering the used paint. In addition, we continue our endeavors on indigo dyeing techniques called anhydrous dyeing. In this production technique, there is near-zero water usage and almost zero chemical waste.
What kind of plans and goals does Matesa Denim have in the near term?
Among our near term plans, I can elaborate on renewable energy investments, sustainable, environmentally friendly, zero-waste production processes, and value-added fabric manufacturing. The most important target for us is to increase our foreign sales, obtain new markets abroad, and provide foreign currency inflows to our country.
Interview: Kübra Karaca
