The Hindu Business Line : Craigmore consolidating domestic market

THE Bangalore-based Craigmore Textiles, predominantly into exports of textile products, is consolidating its operations in the domestic embroidered products market, estimated to be of the order of Rs 1,500 crore.

With just Rs 5 crore out of the Rs 28 crore coming from domestic sales, the company is confident that the domestic business climate was conducive to its product offerings. It has launched `This is me', a pre-packaged three-piece, ready-to-stitch set comprising of five metres embroidered material for a kurta & dupatta and 2.25 metres for salwar.

Craigmore Textiles derives its strength from a range of embroidery designs created by Swiss Embroideries, which in turn uses a contemporary design studio, embroidery machines, specially imported from Switzerland, Mr R. Vasudevan, Head, Consumer Business, told newspersons here today. Targeted at women consumers with capability to buy products beyond Rs 1,000, the company has also lined up exclusive men's packs, home furnishing and bed linen among its offerings in the near future for the domestic market, he said.

Part of the Craigmore Group, which has diversified interests in plantations, oil, textiles etc., the company has invested up to Rs 70 crore in computerised machines from the Swiss company, Lasser. It plans to buy two more machines this year costing about Rs 14 crore as part of efforts to grab a significant chunk of the domestic market, Mr Vasudevan said.

The company uses latest design software and has a Swiss-trained team of designers and digitizers. It has built a databank of over 20,000 designs of all types of embroidery for garments, dress materials, bridal wear, lingerie, sleepwear, home furnishings etc.