The amount of products bearing the Australian Cotton mark has increased by 91 per cent between 2022 to 2023 to a total of 28,963,221.
This is despite cotton crop yields dropping by more than a million bales since 2021 to around 4.1 million.
Cotton Australia also recorded a 79 per cent increase in cotton mark applications since 2022, with total applications in 2023 hitting 203.
Supply chain consultant for Cotton Australia, Brooke Summers, and brand relations manager Ashley Hollis shared the licensing news recently on the Fashion Business Mindset podcast.
“We're seeing brands wanting to be a part of the programme and wanting to also ensure that when they're saying that their product is Australian cotton, that we've put some checks in place to ensure that they can call that out and really push that through their messaging and all their marketing,” Hollis said.
According to Summers, it is free to sign on to the licensing programme.
“So we have a blend mark, which is 60% or more Australian cotton, and we have an Australian cotton mark, which is 95% more or cotton. And those marks can be applied to a product, a swing tag, a label etc.
“It's a pretty simple process for us to work with a brand to get them to apply to use the Australian cotton mark on their products. And as Ashley said, we've seen a huge increase in the both the number of brands and the number of products that are carrying that mark.”
Summers added that the goal is to sign on brands for the long-term.
“We're not really interested in working with brands that just want to do a one-off capsule collection with Australian cotton,” she said. “It's a much more strategic kind of partnership that is really about embedding Australian cotton in the long term in the sourcing strategy.
“And if that means it takes longer, and there's training required, and we get brands out onto our farms to be really comfortable with our story, then we're really happy to spend that time and do that, because we want to partner for the long term.”
The growth in licensed products and brands comes despite a projected fall in Australian cotton production by 26% to 925,000 tonnes in 2023 to 2024.
According to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestries (DAFF), area planted to cotton is forecast to fall by 28% to 413 thousand hectares, driven by reduced dryland and irrigated cotton plantings due to drier conditions under El Niño and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole event.
“Aggregate cotton yields are expected to increase to 2.2 tonnes per hectare because a higher proportion of Australian cotton is expected to be irrigated.
“High water storage levels in the Murray-Darling Basin are expected to support irrigated cotton yields despite El Niño conditions. Cotton production is, therefore, likely to remain 20% above the 10-year average to 2022–23.”
Cotton export volumes are also forecast to fall by 9% to 1.2 million tonnes in 2023–24.
However, DAFF reported that exports remain elevated at 57% above the 10-year average, supported by demand from emerging Asian markets despite global market uncertainties; demand from Vietnam, Turkey, Bangladesh and Indonesia accounted for more than half of export volumes in 2022–23, and similar export patterns are expected to continue in 2023–24.
Summers said that China has also returned into the market recently after a period of refusing to buy Australian cotton.
“This has been a bit of a challenge for us because they've been a really big part of our market over the last 10 or 15 years,” Summer said.
“But then, Ashley's team has done an analysis of where our brand partners make their products, and thankfully those countries really do line up, so most of them are making in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, those kinds of countries.
Hollis then jumped in, saying each country is capitalising on different fabric styles from the use of Australian cotton.
“You might get better denim coming out of Vietnam now,” Hollis said. “I'm actually seeing a shift in the market coming through that country - from spinning right through to the end product for denim.
“It's really exciting, because you'd never think Vietnam for denim, but they're actually starting to push that through a little bit more.
“Then you have Bangladesh that are doing some fantastic plain tees, some really good knits, and chunky cotton knits, which I just feel like that's a really exciting market to be in right now.
“And then you got India who's looking at the more delicate kind of cotton fabrics that are coming through, with those more intricate details that are on that product.
“Not every region is going to be the same and provide you with the same outcome. I think it's very important to have your sourcing strategy really set and your key values in that sourcing strategy, and the reasons why you want to be in a particular region over others, and what the product is.”
However, Summers said most of the cotton grown in Australia goes to international brands rather than local business. She said the key reason for this is due to its sustainability credentials and product provenance.
“This means that they can meet a whole lot of other requirements that are coming at them globally,” Summers said. “There's a huge legislation out of the EU, for example, where you can't sell product into the US unless you know that it hasn't been made with any kind of human rights issue.
“And so from a growing perspective, were able to really sell that story into the global market and that premium global market as well.”