April 20th Update
AAFF News Update
Development and progress continues as AAFF works aggressively towards developing the use of American raised Alpaca fiber in textile fabrics. As our last update stated, in December, AAFF’s first introduction of an alpaca/cotton blended denim jean was in Paris France the week of December 5th, 2008. That introduction ended as a massive success. In January our textile mill partner, GFM Telas Parras was forced to cancel the alpaca/cotton project due to GE Capital closing their corporate financing group. Textile mills, as well as other companies worldwide were being devastated by the global recession as was GE Capital Finance.
In January, AAFF once again traveled globally to locate a new textile mill partner for our alpaca project. In early March, AAFF entered into agreements with a very large denim textile mill and woolen spinning mill. Both are located in Mexico. Both mills began immediate R & D as AAFF shipped tons of alpaca fiber to the mill partners. AAFF established a Mexico operational manager to oversee both mill partners. Initial denim fabric is scheduled to roll off the line by May 15th. In addition to our denim blends, with our woolen spinning mill, AAFF is producing alpaca blends with other types of non-denim fabric, such as blending alpaca with wool, linen, camel, cashmere, etc. These non-denim blends are expected to roll off the line in mid June.
During our R & D period with our new mills, AAFF needed to suspend fiber pickups until we knew exactly what quantities our mills needed and if our mills would require different sorting or cutting techniques.
In February and March AAFF was also busy following up with designers and distributors in New York City and other locations worldwide. These companies had contacted us at the Paris France show and had intense interest in our alpaca/cotton denim jeans “Paca Blues”. AAFF saw this interest globally.
In late March, AAFF opened a sales office in Manhattan…New York City, so as to better facilitate our sales efforts of alpaca blended fabrics to designers and retailers. In late March a second major marketing campaign began for our alpaca fiber blended fabric.
In early April, a very large global mill and denim group approached AAFF with their interest to enter into negotiations with AAFF regarding our product line. Last week AAFF traveled to Dubai for meetings. This company first met with AAFF in Paris. This very large producer of denim has mill operations in Dubai, Egypt, Turkey and India. Their customer list reads as a “who’s who” amongst global retailers. On April 9th, AAFF entered into a Letter of Intent with this company.
In mid May and mid June AAFF travels back to Mexico to review our latest R & D progress of blending alpaca fiber with cotton, wool, linen, camel, cashmere and more. If our R & D progresses as planned, AAFF expects our fabric line for 2010 to be introduced at a major product introduction and rollout in New York City to designers and retailers worldwide sometime in or around September or October 2009.
In the meantime, we ask our AAFF members to understand that although fiber pick up and payments have been delayed during the first quarter of 2009, AAFF is still very much in focus and is certainly pressing on…in spite of the recession.
March 19th Update
Dear American Alpaca Fiber Federation Member,
As an update, AAFF wanted to keep all our members informed as to our progress with Alpaca denim. In December we sent to each of you an update but so much has happened we felt it was time for another update. In one simple word, to summarize the last three months, the word is "EXCITING"!
We all have experienced firsthand, the global recession that every family and company is struggling with around the world and it has certainly dealt us all a severe financial blow. On December 3rd and 4th AAFF traveled to Paris, France where our new Alpaca Denim fabric debut to rave reviews. In January we received word from our mill that they were being forced to close mills and lay off employees worldwide....and thus suspend alpaca fiber operations due to their financial condition. Our joint venture partner, GFM Telas Parras had been in business more than 100 years manufacturing denim. In early January, Parras was notified that their financing group, GE Capital was no longer financing such manufacturing companies as they had in the past. Due to the global recession, GE Capital was ceasing this type of lending. View this link for just one of the articles on this situation (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GE-Capital-informs-workers-of-apf-14086497.html).
After almost a year of work and the creation and debut of our denim fabric and denim jeans in Paris, we were now having to locate a new mill and a new joint venture partner, just as we were about to introduce our new Alpaca Denim line. It was devastating to us. Starting in late January, AAFF begin again searching the world for new mills and a new joint venture partners. After endless days of effort, and many presentations as we explained the benefits of Alpaca fiber, we located not just one, but three joint venture partners who were ready to immediately proceed with Alpaca fiber R&D and production. We will soon be announcing our new partners as we finalize agreements. We can tell you at this time that one is a denim manufacturer in Mexico that covers the world, another is a fashion fabric mill that makes all types of fabric (but not denim) and primarily distributes in the Americas and Canada and the third joint venture partner is based in Dubai U.A.E. with mills in Egypt producing all types of fashion fabrics, both denim and other fabrics and selling both fabrics and finished goods in the Middle East, Far East, Europe as well as the U.S.A. All of our mill partners have sold for years to such retailers as GAP, Old Navy, Levis, Abercrombie & Fitch, Patagonia and others. AAFF is also looking at not only fabric sales but also lifestyle sales for the home. Until R&D and final production is completed by our new partners we will not know which retailers our Alpaca products will be sold to but needless to say the market is very excited about our new fabric opportunities.
Another very exciting development is that AAFF will soon have representation in NYC in Manhattan. We are doing this so as to be closer to our thousands of customers, the New York City designers and retailers that will be purchasing Alpaca denim and fashion products. Out of New York City, buyers purchase for retailers worldwide.
Soon to be announced will be our major roll out of our new fashion line by our mills which is being scheduled in New York City in late 2009. We will keep each of our members informed as soon as the exact date is scheduled. The purpose of this spectacular roll out event is to introduce to both the fashion media as well as to designers and retailers our new fabulous fabrics. Each of our members will be invited to this fashion event in New York. If you live nearby we hope to see you there!
For many of our AAFF members on the East coast, and in the Midwest, we have already picked up your fiber in late 2008. For those of you in other states, we will be picking up fiber sometime soon, but we cannot give you an exact date until we get a little further along. We hope to do it later this year. The delay of course was due to the global economic crises that we have explained above and how that set us back and caused us to search and locate new joint venture partners. Obviously, like with most of us when it comes to such economic calamities, we were not expecting this turn of events. AAFF thanks each of you for working with us.
Our goal at AAFF is simple.......for the first time in American history we want to find a means in which to market the fiber from American alpacas to the masses globally, not just to a few niche markets. Our belief is that unless we find such a fiber market, all of us as Alpaca breeders are in financial jeopardy. The task to create a fiber market has not been easy, as you can see. It has not been inexpensive either. Barbara Laird and the Directors of AAFF have continually been required to infuse more capital, but it is the opinion of the AAFF that the cost will be worth it. A vision is always costly. Sometimes it can cost the visionary everything......but without vision there is no future. We are thankful that as an AAFF member you are seeing the future with us!
American
Alpaca Fiber Federation, LLC
210-336-4220
226 State Hwy 46 E
Boerne, TX 78006
www.americanalpacafiberfederation.com
mail@americanalpacafiberfederation.com