GREENSBORO, North Carolina — Unifi Inc. is seeing the early signs of a turnaround in the textile industry, especially in contract and hospitality markets, and has been operating at near-full capacity during the past two quarters, according to Roger Berrier, executive vice president at Unifi.

A $650 million producer of specialty yarns including Repreve® post consumer recyclable polyester yarn, Unifi is currently the largest yarn supplier in North America. It has a sister division in Suzhou, China that also produces specialty yarns. Unifi Textiles Suzhou exhibited its yarns at Intertextile Shanghai for the second time this year, furthering the belief that the company is on the rebound.

“Business is improving at retail with more confidence as a result,” said Berrier. “Both companies are profitable and both areas are stable when compared to 2007 – 2008, but Asia shows more growth than the USA.”

Another Unifi operation based in Brazil is also reporting profits, according to Berrier.

The sale of raw materials is also increasing, with Unifi pushing through price increases to its mills in the eight to ten percent range effective July 1. Unifi’s costs have increased to more than 10-percent, according to Berrier. 

With about 25-percent in home furnishings, most of Unifi’s business is apparel related.

 “We’re committed to incorporating green at a corporate level because we see that consumers care about green product concepts,” said Berrier. “We’re planning to open up our own recycling plant to produce our own recycled polyester in the near term. Our goal is to drive down the cost of producing Repreve®  so that it is price competitive to virgin polyester.”