Plains Cotton Cooperative Association (PCCA) of Lubbock, TX, and Koramsa Corporation of Guatemala City, Guatemala, have signed a definitive contract in which PCCA purchases key assets of Koramsa Corporation, forming a new company named DENIMATRIX, LP, to produce fashion jeans at the former Koramsa facilities in Guatemala City.

“DENIMATRIX will be the first fully-integrated vertical supply chain from raw cotton to finished jeans in the Western Hemisphere,” said Carlos Arias, president of DENIMATRIX. “We are very excited about the opportunity to partner with PCCA’s American Cotton Growers (ACG) denim mill. The synergies achieved by incorporating joint product development and design from raw cotton all the way through finished apparel will give us the flexibility to offer a broad range of quick-response fashion jeans and other apparel to our customers.”

PCCA President and CEO Wally Darneille echoed Arias’s sentiments.“ DENIMATRIX will have the finest combination of facilities and capabilities in this hemisphere. Those assets, along with PCCA’s access to raw cotton, ACG’s 34 years of experience in producing denim fabrics for a wide variety of customers, and Carlos Arias’s team of creative and experienced people will make DENIMATRIX a truly unique operation,” Darneille said. “We are very pleased that we were able to form the company quickly so that we can effectively continue business programs with current customers of both ACG and Koramsa. The Koramsa management team will remain, and their experienced operators are eager to return to work,” he added. “We will continue to produce denim at our Littlefield, TX, facility in the heart of cotton country and will deliver fabric to Guatemala. This should allow us to shorten the supply chain further. Given today’s retail environment, the 60-90 day advantage we will have over Asian and Middle Eastern supply chains will provide tangible, measurable value for apparel brands and retailers.”

PCCA is a producer-owned cotton marketing cooperative headquartered in Lubbock, in the center of the “world’s biggest cotton patch.” According to the National Cotton Council’s planting intentions survey released February 13, PCCA’s trade territory will represent 55%-60% percent of U.S. cotton acreage in 2009. PCCA’s ACG subsidiary was founded in 1975 and produces enough denim to make approximately 20 million pairs of jeans per year. PCCA’s other divisions include interactive electronic marketing, software and hardware services, warehousing, and logistics services.

“DENIMATRIX is open for business,” said Arias. “We have received substantial orders from two large brands, and we are actively negotiating styles and deliveries with several others. We expect to deliver our first units in early May and expect DENIMATRIX to continue to rely on a well established supply chain for jeans in the Americas,” he added.

“Our members have always been proud that their cotton was made into denim,” Darneille noted. ”Now, they can take pride in the jeans produced in-house from their cotton.”