While glancing through a garment of any international brand today, one can easily notice the increasing number of labels that are found on it. Following the demand to label each and every apparel product with instructions on material, manufacturing base, fibre composition, wash care etc., and with the garment industry becoming stricter with the concept of labelling, evidently there is a market that caters to this growing need. Leading the label market as one of the biggest woven label manufacturers in Tirupur is Top Light Labels, which was started in 1985 as a chit fund company, and which eventually rolled out its operations in the year 2000 for label manufacturing, diversifying into the elastic market in 2005, another essential garment accessory.
Specializing in producing all sorts of labels ranging from 100% cotton labels, organic cotton, micro weave satin labels, digi-color, woven knit label, needle-loom, embossed and printed labels, the company has a production capacity of one million pieces of labels per day. N. Velusamy, Chairman of the company says, “Apart from our well received labels, our elastic business produces up to 20,000 metres of plain and name elastics per day majorly for the underwear industry.” In order to grow all its necessary produce in-house, Top Light has its own farm, spread over an area of one acre on the Tirupur, Palladam road, along with its own windmill with a capacity of 1.6 MW per hour, to generate wind energy for their required consumption.
Established European and American brands which have always been particular about their garment labelling remain the major buyers for Top Light. The company has further benefited from the same concept of labels becoming popular in the domestic market in the last few years. Even for elastics with international brands being one of the biggest buyers, they are now having a fair amount of local buyers as well. Observing a positive growth trend Velusamy shares, “We have now shifted to the local market as the export market has stagnated for last couple of years and we have seen a 5 to 10 per cent growth per year in the domestic market. Although our main share still remains the export market comprising 75 per cent of our total business; the remaining 25 per cent is domestic. Our major markets are Tirupur, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai.”
Technology is the key to quality and the company is known to achieve excellent quality, quantity and technological efficiency of timely delivery for buyers, having an excellent infrastructure of the most advanced imported European label weaving machine, laser cutting machine, label printing, cut and fold, and elastic loom machines. The company’s product plant is well equipped with advanced CAD capabilities and latest technology ranging from air jets to ultrasonic cut and laser die-cutting machines. Also present is a compacting facility which gives a fine finishing for knitted and woven fabrics by different processes like compacting with technically advanced machines like Ferraro and Tubetex (includes tubular and open width), heat setting, raising, relax drying and washing.
Never tired of trying and opening up new dimensions for itself, the company after establishing its roots in the labels market, is in process to spread out its existing operations in the major metropolitan cities of India and has already started to participate in fairs like leather fair, Delhi and Australia sourcing fair. Having a strong environmental focus soon to be launched is a solar plant with the intention to generate energy through natural resources. They also have plans to start a separate line of transfer labels as Velusamy considers the category to be the future of labels and claims that maximum number of US buyers today wants transfer labels. The company is also diversifying into new areas and planning to get into tag manufacturing and invest in a tape dyeing machine as well.
