Tamil Nadu Handloom Weavers Cooperative Society Limited (Co-optex), which has carved out a niche for itself in the organic sari segment, is planning to come out with more organic products, including salwar kameez, kurtis and salwar suits, soon to woo the GenX customers, said Managing Director T.N. Venkatesh.
''The response to its rich collection of environment-friendly organic saris through the online mode is highly encouraging with a sale of 17,000 skin-friendly pieces last year to customers especially from US, UK, Middle East, Malaysia and Singapore,'', he said after the launch of its''1000 butta sarees'' here, for the first time in Andhra Pradesh, coinciding with its expo which was thrown open to public at the Fancy Goods Merchants Association hall on Sunday. A 20% discount is offered at the expo which will be open till June 25.
“Andhra Pradesh is an important market for Co-optex which has its State headquarters in Vijayawada. Two showrooms, one each in Ongole and Visakhapatnam will be opened soon to increase its presence in the State,” he said, adding that a business target of ₹ 340 crore had been fixed for 2017-18 as against ₹315 crore the previous year.
“We had a modest start with just 10 looms to produce organic saris with cotton grown using organic fertilizers and with natural dyes in February 2015'', he said and added that there were 250 looms now, that help meeting the “ever-increasing demand for organic sarees and other dress material produced with vegetable dyes extracted from the natural flora including turmeric, pomegranate and banana flower.” A sale target of 25,000 organic saris had been fixed for this fiscal.