Polopique Group has just established a new spinning unit from scratch, primarily conceived to produce fine yarns, blends and dyed yarn. According to the Chairman of the Group, Luís Guimarães, the production unit is an answer to latent needs, increasing production capacity to 360 tons per month.

Polopique’s investment in the spinning ascends to 30 million euros, an amount that includes the acquisition in 2010 of Fiateviz and its further renewal plus the building of this new unit that integrates 13 carding frames, 6 roving frames, 10 drawing machines, 10 combers, 20 winding machines and 20 ring spun machines which are the equivalent to 23.040 spindles, including two systems for core spun yarn and another two for compact yarn.

“Our production increase and the lack of resort to suppliers in Portugal or nearby that could allow us to continue to respond quickly to our clients” dictated the increase of yarn production, as explained by Luís Guimarães to Jornal Têxtil (a Portuguese textile newspaper), in an article published February 2017.

The two spin units that employ 103 people are complementary, where the new spinning unit is dedicated to fine yarns, heathers and dyed yarns, namely for shirting, whereas the existing unit produces essentially yarns for the knitwear sector – reaching a monthly production of 360 tons that can potentially increase. “Half of our new facilities are vacant precisely to decide in the course of this year whether to move the existing spinning unit there, everything being already set up for this purpose, or we buy more equipment and we increase our yarn production”, revealed the Chairman of Polopique Group.

Certain is that the yarn production is intended only for “internal consumption” and not to be sold to third parties. “That is not our intent for now”, guaranteed Luís Guimarães.

However, the current production is not still sufficient to meet the vertical textile group’s needs – estimated in 500 tons of yarn per month. “But, out of these 500 tons, it doesn’t make sense [to produce in-house] some of the raw material”, noted Luís Guimarães.

With the group growing year after year – in 2016, revenue was estimated to have grown between 10% and 11%, to an amount next to 126 million euros -, the investment should continue in 2017 and in future. “We invest every year. This year we are investing in machinery with some specialization in the finishing and preparation area” stated Luís Guimarães, underlining the focus on the improvement of logistics and energy.