Back to the rise of Afew Goods! In order to figure out how to handle sustainable production, we set out to Portugal. We arranged meetings with various local producers and visited several production facilities. They are all placed in the same area in the north of Porto, near Braga and Guimaraes. For generations, Portugal has been known for its high-quality textile production, craftsmanship (which we value a LOT) and good ethical working conditions. Plus, there are some producers with lots of experience in sustainable production.
As rookies, we had lots of questions: What’s the fabric made of? Oh, cotton? Well, how and where is the cotton from and how is it transported? In which ways can we avoid plastic? Basically we wanted to know every little detail about everything related to sustainable production. We were shocked that some of our questions could not be answered since no one asked those kinds of questions before. Nevertheless, we were positively overwhelmed by the support, patience, time and information that all of the local experts provided us with.
They showed us every step of how a piece of textile is produced. The sheer amount of steps, hands, machines and time it takes to produces a t-shirt almost makes you reverent to this simple product. Speaking of amounts: It was crazy to see the amount of detail, precision, and conscientiousness each facility worker puts into her/his work.
It was really hard to make a decision, but in the end, we decided that Valerius is our first producer of choice. Celia and her team understood our vision and we were on the same page from the get-go. Not only can they provide excellent quality and have profound experience in sustainable production, but the firm also acquired various telling certifications from organizations like GOTS, FAIRTRADE, Global Recycled Standards, OEKO TEX 100 and many more. After visiting Valerius and seeing its whole production, we had a great feeling and we knew that Afew Goods’ jerseys and sweats would be good in the hands of Valerius.
