GASTONIA, N.C.—Russian-born flock converter Alex Gendelman has recently opened a print plant here under the name Century Textiles Manufacturing Inc., plant manager Ronald Watford confirmed.
Watford said Gendelman is shipping finished, transfer-printed flock to Russian buyers, and aims to export wet-printed flock soon.
Demand for printed flock is strong in Russia, particularly amongst furniture manufacturers. Gendelman buys flock from the last remaining American greige suppliers, Spectro and Intermark. He plans to open two wet printing lines by March with the help of a couple Zimmer rotary screen printers.
Gendelman began converting his flock lines eight years ago at the Culp print operation, and bid on Culp's print plant when the company announced it was abandoning the flock business. But by the time the deal could be made, Gendelman had already moved ahead with Century Textiles.
Gendelman could not be reached for comment since he was traveling extensively in Russia, Europe and Poland at the time of this report.