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The thread awarded at Techtextil 2019 will begin industrial production in two months, and the new enterprise, whose ownership is shared by Penedo and Sedacor, is expected to present a turnover in the order of two million euro by 2020.
“The outcome of this project has exceeded our expectations. The award increased the demand even more. We have been contacted by all the big global brands in sports as well as the most prestige fashion labels”, confides Xavier Leite, CEO of Têxteis Penedo.
Equipped with machines purposefully made for the production of cork thread and built by Portuguese metalworking companies, the Cork-a-Tex factory, located in Guimarães, will manufacture the cork thread, whereas the following phase will be divided by several companies – JF Almeida will do the weaving for terrycloth and Penedo for jacquard fabrics.
Naturally, the cork thread stole the show at Penedo’s stand in the From Portugal showcase at Techtextil, but two other products also made some heads turn: the Pillow2Bed and Photofabric.
Pillow2Bed is a pillow that turns into a couch, solving the domestic emergency of suddenly having a friend sleeping over.
Photofabric is a process of printing in fabric that is the delight of architects and designers alike, and is poised to completely replace wallpaper soon. “It’s higher quality, more resistant and durable than wallpaper and we can work from a picture resolution as low as 300 dpi”, explains the CEO of Penedo.