MERIDIAN TARGETS RUG MARKET WITH NEW WOOL AND WOOL BLEND YARNS AS U.S. PLANT GOES ONLINE
Better known for its fashion textiles and craft yarn, Meridian Specialty Yarn Group enters the carpet and rug business with new capabilities at its U.S. facility. |
VALDESE, N.C.--Meridian Specialty Yarn Group Inc. (MSYG), better known as a purveyor of textiles and craft yarn, expands its target market to include carpet and rug makers with its production of wool and wool/polyester blend carpet yarns at the company's newly expanded Ranlo production plant.
A new product line for MSYG, the new factory capabilities also represents the return of wool carpet yarn production to North America, stated MSYG. The wool yarns produced will serve the high-end, tufted and woven carpet and rug markets and will be offered in various blends and colors using naturally colored wool, along with a complete range of shades of top dyed wool.
Sample yarns were produced earlier this year on the plant's newly installed preparation, blending, twisting and winding equipment and full wool carpet yarn production began this month in a newly renovated section of the Ranlo plant. The new wool carpet yarn operation expands the Ranlo plant's production capacity by an estimated 25 percent
"All of us at MSYG are excited about the opportunity to bring wool carpet yarn production back to the United States," said Tim Manson, president, MSYG. "As bulked continuous filament (BCF) yarns came to dominate the carpet yarn supply chain, long staple spinning capacity for wool yarns in North America began to disappear and ultimately exited the market, leaving imported yarns as the sole supply."
Manson added that the new carpet yarn business unit is a natural extension of the company's experience and technology at the Ranlo plant, where MSYG already supplies yarns for other markets.
"By having a segregated unit set up solely for carpet yarn production, we believe we can fill a void left in the domestic market," Manson said. "When coupled with the top dyeing and yarn printing capabilities at our Valdese wet processing facility, we are adding a new dimension to this product line with top dyed solid shades, blended heathers, marled yarns and other color effects."
MSYG has been spinning and twisting coarse count, long staple yarns in wool and other fibers for many years at its Ranlo plant, serving upholstery, hosiery, craft and apparel markets.
The Ranlo operation has numerous yarn formation capabilities including ring spinning and twisting, hollow spindle, Taslan, Dima air injection yarns, fancy twist and self-twist. Fibers processed are wool, wool blends with acrylic or polyester, stretch broken producer dyed acrylic, and olefin fibers, among others.