Dive Brief:
- American Giant, an American-made clothing retailer, is partnering with Walmart to sell T-shirts in 1,700 Walmart locations across the U.S., according to a June 24 press release.
- The T-shirts, which will be released on July 4, are made from U.S.-grown cotton in the Southeast and manufactured in factories from the Carolinas to California, the release stated.
- The multi-year partnership is part of Walmart’s initiative to onshore manufacturing industries like apparel and provide resources to small businesses to grow their local supply chains.
Dive Insight:
The agreement highlights American Giant's overall mission to onshore textile manufacturing and give Americans jobs.
Less than 3% of clothing sold in the U.S. is made in the U.S., according to the 2022 data from the American Apparel & Footwear Association.
“If you make stuff in the United States, you get the human rights benefits, the environmental benefits, the worker safety benefits that are baked into domestic law in a way that if you make it somewhere else like Bangladesh or China, there are nowhere near the levels of protections for those brands,” American Giant CEO Bayard Winthrop said in a ‘How I built This with Guy Raz’ podcast on Monday.
Having a domestic supply chain has paid off for American Giant in recent years, especially during the pandemic when most retailers were struggling with global supply chain disruptions. In fact, the retailer CEO Winthrop is a staunch advocate for a domestic supply chain and manufacturing and has been advocating for other apparel brands to join him, according to an interview with Fast Company.
American Giant, founded in 2012, has several partners in the U.S. and manufacturing facilities spanning from the Carolinas to Los Angeles, a company spokesperson told Manufacturing Dive in an email. Much of the cotton for the company’s hoodies and other items comes from Latros Farms in Enfield, North Carolina, and is spun into yarn at Parkdale Mills plant, in Gaffney, South Carolina.
The yarn is woven into fabric in Clover, South Carolina, then travels to Carolina Cotton Works factory in Gaffney, South Carolina, where it’s dyed and finished. Finally, the clothes are cut and sewn at Eagle Sportswear in Middlesex, North Carolina, Winthrop said in the podcast.
The collaboration also supports Walmart’s American Lighthouse initiative to source $350 billion worth of products made, grown or assembled in the U.S., by 2031.
The retail giant’s onshoring project, introduced in 2021, is estimated to create 750,000 new American jobs. It builds off of Walmart’s annual Open Call competition for small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. to sell their products on Walmart or Sam's Club shelves. At last year's Open Call, Walmart and Sam's Club merchants heard over 1,000 pitches from more than 700 businesses hailing from all 50 states.
“Walmart’s commitment and volume changes the economies of scale and allows us to accelerate our progress on returning American clothing manufacturing to its role as a world wide leader of quality, sustainable production,” Walmart EVP of Sourcing Andrea Albright said.
