Denim Company Lets Consumers Trace the Origins of Their Jeans

Arcanum, Ohio–based All American Clothing Co. thinks shoppers will appreciate knowing that their jeans were “grown and sewn” domestically.

To wit, the maker of denim, polos and outerwear for men and women has partnered with Made in USA Certified, a Boca Raton, Fla.–based independent certification company that complies with the Federal Trade Commission requirements, to develop “USA Traceability,” a system that allows shoppers to use a tracking number on each pair of jeans to trace their origins, from farm to fabric mill to sewing facility.

All American Clothing Co., which sells its clothes online, uses the permanent bale-identifier tags that are attached to bales of cotton as they are ginned to trace the progress of the cotton as it moves through the production process. Yarn produced at the mill is tagged with the same identifier and allows the company to track the cotton as it is woven into fabric and sent to the cut-and-sew facility.

At the consumer level, jeans are given a tracking number that corresponds to the original permanent bale identifier, and shoppers are directed to the All American Clothing Co. website, where they may enter that number into a search field. The results show the farm or farms that grew the cotton in their jeans—often with details and photos of the farms and farmers that grew the cotton. American Cotton Growers produces all of the denim fabrics used by All American Clothing Co., and Elk Brand Manufacturing and the Texas Wash House sew and wash the company’s denim, respectively.—Erin Barajas