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At a Look

Firm High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit

Headquarters Toronto, Ontario, the place it operates a 60,000-square-foot knitting plant and a 160,000-square-foot dyeing and ending facility. 

Specialty Revolutionary, high-tech knit materials for sleep and attire. Materials vary from jerseys to jacquards, in quite a lot of weights and contents, together with pure, artificial and artifical fibers.  

Historical past Based in 1997

Possession Privately held by Harish Patel and his nephew Biren

Study extra FineCottonFactory.com

With 2025 being one other stable 12 months in each the sleep and attire sides of its specialty and purposeful materials enterprise, Toronto-based High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit has a number of main initiatives within the works designed to maintain its progress streak going.

For starters, the round knit producer and importer is within the technique of including two buildings. One constructing shall be used for warehousing, changing a number of websites that High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit has been leasing throughout the Toronto metro space.  

“We’re near finalizing the acquisition of a brand new 50,000-square-foot warehouse the place we are able to retailer all of our yarn, completed cloth, and different supplies in a single location near our manufacturing,” says Skip Kann, govt vice chairman of gross sales and advertising and marketing. “This alteration will allow us to be extra environment friendly, since every part we’d like shall be available in a single spot.”

The second constructing will home High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit’s stitching and laminating operation. “We simply purchased six new knitting machines to maintain up with demand, and we have to transfer the sewn product division out to make room,” Kann says, including that the corporate now has 80 knitting machines able to producing 25,000 yards per week of attire materials and 25,000 yards per week of mattress ticking.

The corporate can be planning to purchase a quilting machine to be used with its zippered covers.

High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit’s essential facility is a 60,000-square-foot constructing in Etobicoke, Ontario. That facility homes knitting operations and enterprise workplaces, plus a showroom and design studio. A state-of-the-art dyeing/ending operation is housed in a 160,000-square-foot constructing in close by Brampton, Ontario. The corporate’s workforce, together with administration, totals 180 folks.

A staff strategy

High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit was based in 1997 as an attire producer by Harish Patel. Biren Patel, Harish’s nephew, began working with High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit at age 22 and shortly started modifying the corporate’s knitting machines to make them extra adaptable to the wants of a various combine of shoppers. Right now, as president, he continues to use his engineering know-how to the corporate’s manufacturing operations whereas additionally overseeing a community of worldwide sources and suppliers.

High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit bought off to a quick begin in its early years as a provider to the textile business, supplying materials to high-profile manufacturers comparable to Hole, Adidas, Reebok, Brooks, and Nike. High-quality Cotton entered the sleep business in 2010, when it bought its first mattress ticking machines. 

In 2014, Kann joined the corporate after 35 years of operating his personal dyeing and ending firm, Fashionable Dyers. Throughout that earlier section of his profession, he performed a key function within the growth of stonewashing for denim blue denims whereas working with Lee Denims.

A broad assortment

Sleep merchandise account for about half of High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit’s enterprise. The corporate presents a large assortment of knitted materials for sleep, from mattress ticking and borders to toppers, mattress pads, and sheet units. The product combine features a broad vary of unique, in-house designed patterns and textiles for the sleep business, in addition to customizable patterns and applications. High-quality Cotton works with all the newest yarns and colours and, with its personal superior dyeing capabilities, can match nearly any coloration that’s requested by prospects. 

As well as, the corporate presents quite a lot of fire-retardant options, together with its patented Slayer line of single-layer materials for latex beds. The road options FR socks and ornamental covers with inherent safety. In 2023, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit additionally added a top-of-bed program, which incorporates juvenile bedding that includes high-resolution dye-sublimation imagery.

Practically 80% of High-quality Cotton’s whole gross sales entails merchandise made in its personal crops, with import companions in India and different Asian international locations accounting for the rest. With imports, High-quality Cotton appears to supply prospects with materials it doesn’t make in-house, comparable to woven ticking. 

“We wish to make it simple for our prospects to do enterprise with us by offering one-stop-shop comfort,” Kann says. “Right here in Canada, there isn’t any such factor as valet parking. We realized from our mates within the U.S. the way it feels to be handled particular, so relating to offering materials for our prospects, we provide no-hassle, valet-type therapy each single day.” 

Since each Biren Patel and Kann have the function of “purchaser” of their job descriptions, High-quality Cotton retains a detailed eye on developments in logistics. “We all know freight is getting dearer, so we do no matter we are able to to make our shipments as environment friendly as doable,” Kann says. “We work exhausting to organize our cloth pallets earlier than they exit the door in order that masses are maximized and prices are minimized. We hate for anybody, together with us, to waste cash.”

High-quality Cotton’s order course of is also streamlined, with the corporate dealing with all documentation, clearance, and different freight preparations, Kann provides. “We make it simple for purchasers within the U.S. to do enterprise with us.”

A two-pronged mission

Over the previous 29 years, underneath the course of Biren Patel, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit has been quietly constructing a rising base of shoppers in Canada and the USA by specializing in two key targets: product innovation and sustainability. The corporate’s “333 King of Jersey” expertise, launched in 2023, gives an excellent instance of how High-quality Cotton works exhausting to lift the bar in each areas.

In creating the 333 attire line, the corporate developed new equipment that’s able to knitting jersey materials that shrink three-width by three-length by 3% torque (or power) in 100% cotton. The corporate’s unique equipment ensures that the twisting power that provides the yarn or thread its torque is wound collectively in a compact trend to make sure that the material shrinks not more than 3%. 

Traditionally, attire producers have tried to sort out the shrinkage problem by washing completed clothes previous to sale. High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit was washing 700 rolls a day to attain this efficiency normal previous to the event of 333 jersey. 

“We’re speaking about thousands and thousands of clothes every week that needed to be washed previous to sale, which wasted an unbelievable quantity of water and vitality,” says Skip’s son Michael Kann, enterprise growth specialist. “Our ‘King of Jersey’ expertise requires no pre-washing in any respect, so there’s no wasted vitality in its manufacturing. The ensuing financial savings to our buyer was gigantic, and our environmental footprint was considerably lowered.”

Whereas 333 is used largely in attire, the expertise is also utilized in a few of High-quality Cotton’s sleep merchandise. These functions embody sheets, toppers, and zippered mattress covers.

High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit takes nice satisfaction within the many inventions it has delivered to market throughout its practically 30-year historical past. The corporate has been an early mover on many new applied sciences, from phase-change supplies and antimicrobial therapies to copper and graphene yarns and Celliant fibers. 

As a number one participant within the Canadian attire business, High-quality Cotton Materials is at all times searching for methods to push the envelope on trend and performance. “The sleep facet of our enterprise advantages from our involvement in attire, and our attire enterprise advantages from our involvement in sleep” Kann says. “For instance, all of the yarn we use is apparel-quality yarn that should cross strict requirements to earn a spot in attire retail markets, and we leverage that high quality to create higher merchandise for the sleep market.”

High-quality Cotton’s attire enterprise additionally provides it a front-row seat for the newest design developments, he provides. “We’re at all times searching for inventive methods to make beds stand out. Proper now, we’re doing a little enjoyable issues with texture and coloration, together with black geometric covers with pine-green and copper yarns. Granted, there’s solely so some ways to render a circle sample, however we attempt to make it as contemporary as we are able to.”

A social accountability

Since taking the corporate’s helm, Biren Patel has made sustainability a prime precedence. High-quality Cotton’s line contains an assortment of eco-friendly textiles and materials made with natural cotton, and the corporate additionally makes use of natural, biodegradable dyes for the majority of its line. On the operational facet, the corporate recycles uncooked materials and cloth waste, and it operates “clear rooms” for manufacturing that scale back waste and guarantee high quality.

As the one vertically built-in textile manufacturing enterprise in Canada that features a ending facility and a dye home, plus stitching, laminating, and quilting, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit is licensed by the World Natural Textile Normal, or GOTS, in all of the post-harvest processing levels of natural cotton, together with spinning, knitting, weaving, dyeing, and manufacturing. As well as, the corporate has been licensed as assembly the World Recycled Normal, which tracks and verifies the content material of recycled supplies in completed merchandise, together with textiles.

The corporate is now to start with levels of making use of for Web Zero certification. The bold purpose is a part of Canada’s nationwide dedication to attain net-zero emissions by 2050. High-quality Cotton is also making ready for the discharge of the brand new GOTS normal, which is able to contain a complete evaluate of its operations. 

“Attaining these certifications for our sustainability requires a giant funding in time and sources, nevertheless it’s a trigger we consider in,” Kann says, including that sustainability has three dimensions at High-quality Cotton. “Sustainability to us means the atmosphere, folks, and product. We’re dedicated to all three areas, with folks being an important aspect of all.”

As a part of that mission, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit pays its employees a “residing wage” of not less than $26 per hour quite than the usual minimal wage. “Our individuals are the cornerstone of our success, and we would like them to thrive—not simply survive,” Kann says.

In the case of the sourcing of uncooked supplies, High-quality Cotton tries as a lot as doable to work with native suppliers. Such “nearshoring” reduces delivery prices, shortens lead instances, and facilitates superior high quality management, Kann says. It additionally permits for nearer oversight of manufacturing and faster responses to market demand. 

A nimble mindset

For completed merchandise, High-quality Cotton has a choose group of abroad companions that it depends on for items that it doesn’t make domestically. At one level not too long ago, it got here near opening a company-owned plant in India, however plans had been placed on maintain when the Trump administration imposed a lot increased tariffs on cloth exported from India. Even so, the corporate continues to function a dozen of its personal knitting machines in India as a part of a provider partnership.

To this point, the potential for increased tariffs on Canadian textile shipments has not had any main influence on High-quality Cotton’s U.S. enterprise. However the firm continues to look at the state of affairs carefully, and it has quite a lot of contingency plans within the occasion U.S. tariffs on Canadian textiles all of a sudden spike. The plans embody including warehousing and/or knitting capability for sleep materials in the USA.

“Biren is a U.S. citizen, so that is one thing that’s shortly doable for us, and we proceed to offer critical thought to it with many choices out there by means of our community of U.S. companions, no matter what occurs with tariffs,” Kann says. “We’ll do no matter makes essentially the most sense for our enterprise—and for our prospects.”

In 2025, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit’s attire enterprise loved one other sturdy progress 12 months. One issue driving gross sales, in line with Kann, is the surge of curiosity in Canadian-made items. “It is a new phenomenon for us,” he says. “The tariff state of affairs sparked a brand new satisfaction in issues made right here, together with attire.” 

Within the bedding section, progress has been tougher to return by, because the business on each side of the border continues to wrestle. One vivid spot for High-quality Cotton, nonetheless, has been its skill to draw new prospects.

“As soon as we get our foot within the door, our skill to ship high quality merchandise at a good worth results in increasingly enterprise over time,” Kann says. “Prospects belief us. And we additionally deal with them the best way we wish to be handled, day in and time out.”

Going ahead, High-quality Cotton Manufacturing unit will proceed to search for methods to leverage the newest expertise in product design, manufacturing, and customer support. 

“We preserve a detailed eye out on a regular basis for brand spanking new applied sciences,” says Michael Kann, who works carefully along with his father and Biren Patel within the administration of High-quality Cotton. “A lot is going on within the areas of digital imaging, sensible manufacturing, computerized knitting, and synthetic intelligence. Our operation is already extremely automated, and we’re at all times concerned with new instruments that may enhance workflow and productiveness.”