Adgums Pvt. Ltd., founded in 1958, was an Indian pioneer in guar and agro-based products for the textile industry. Currently, 80 per cent of guar crop is cultivated and growing in India, with the rest accounted for by Pakistan and the US. In India, Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat are the only three guar harvesting States and are mainly grown in an arid environment. Adgums took advantage of the opportunity and developed and introduced guar-based printing thickeners.
Guar-based products were earlier used as a sizing agent in cotton yarns in the 1950s. With passage of time, applications extended to fabrics too. As of date, guar-based thickeners find application in cottons, cotton-blends, rayons and polyester, nylon, silk and woollen fabrics.
Printing thickeners are mixed with dyes and are used as a courier to ensure that the dyes are completely transferred on to the fabrics. But when the fabric is washed post printing and fixing of dyes, the thickener comes off the fabric. In short, the thickener holds the dye and print design onto the fabric, without which the design would look smudged.
Today, textiles have more to do with fashion, and with new printing technologies there is a strong demand for new and quality printing thickeners.
Adgums manages two production facilities and is the in the process of setting up a third one. The Ahmedabad location, where The Textile Magazine held an exclusive interview with Mr. Naman Patel, Director of Adgums, is the first facility which was set up in 1958. The second unit is located 25 km away from Ahmedabad, and the third plant is a little further away from the second plant.
Adgums has always used the best of technology, German-designed reactors, to make the best quality products. It has a full-fledged laboratory to test all input raw material and finished products for specific quality requirement before the products make their way into the market and as demanded by the customers. The laboratory also doubles up as a R&D centre.
Today, Adgums produces printing thickeners from guar, tamarind seed and different starches, besides producing different derivatives such as depolymerization, carboxymethylation, hydoxypropylation and blends to get excellent properties of printing thickeners.
According to Mr. Patel, India also accounts for a massive 70 per cent global share of tamarind production, which gives the company access to a huge resource of its raw material requirements.
In earlier days, India was catering to just five per cent of global demand of printing thickeners from guar or tamarind based derivatives, which gave them the confidence that their products would find demand in global markets and prompted the company to apply for an 100 per cent EOU status in 2003 and now exports 400-450 tons every month. Today Adgums products find their way into 25 countries across the globe.
“The initial days of exporting were very tough, where they were in direct competition with major German, Italian and US manufacturers. Mr. Patel adds. “At first, they had to convince buyers of their quality, but once the buyers were convinced of their quality, there was no looking back for Adgums.”
In 2003, Adgums for the first time took part in an international exhibition, China Interdyes, and continues to participate in it. At that time, Adgums was the only thickener manufacturer from India exhibiting at the premier dyes trade fair, against which there are now 10 to 15 manufacturers from India exhibiting at the trade show.
Mr. Patel claims that they are proving to be tough competition even for established global thickener manufacturers in the export markets in earlier years, a few global players controlled 90 per cent of the export market. Their share has now come down to a minuscule 5-7 per cent, with the rest of the global market share now controlled by Indian players, out of which Adgums has a 50 per cent share.
According to Mr. Patel, when they started exporting, they were competing with German companies, so their product quality had to be at par with those offered by these companies. However, since now their competitors are primarily Indians, Adgums is setting the benchmark in terms of quality for others and have also been able to gain trust of their foreign buyers in terms of both, delivery times and also quality.
Looking beyond 2015, Mr. Patel says they have a strong presence in the polyester fabric market and are also strong in the rest of the MMF fabrics segment. Their objective now is to gain a better foothold in the cotton fabric processing market and beat the Chinese thickener suppliers who currently have a very good market share. Adgums aims to be a one-stop supplier for serving both the polyester and cotton fabric processors. As of date, thickeners meant for cotton fabric processing make up for a small share of the company’s sales.
Adgums will be launching at ITMA 2015 a new product for reactive dyes which can be used in resist printing that gives more scope for the processor to print three or more designs on the same fabric.
RESIST OP is an innovative single specialty compound to produce perfect white as well as colour resist effects on almost all types of woven fabrics using either Disperse, Acid and Reactive dyestuffs as well as gives Resist effect even if over printed with Pigment emulsions by single stage wet-on-wet printing without addition of any chemicals.
RESIST OP gives best white as well as colour resist on woven polyester fabrics without addition of any chemicals. There is no need of pre-padding or low temp dyeing of fabric, which results in elimination of one whole process and reduces cost.