Product News - June 2007

Our three featured companies this month prove just how innovative the industry can be. Read on to learn about new initiatives from Rivers End, Tru-Spec and G&K Services.

It’s a name with a worldwide reputation for performance, technology, innovation and quality. Now Nike is generating new excitement for promotions, premiums, incentives and corporate events with performance watches and sunglasses supplied through River’s End Trading Company.

Nike performance watches are designed for athletes but made for everyone with features that include a 50-lap chronograph, 100m water resistance, interval timing and alarms for target time and date, plus dual time zone displays. River’s End offers three styles of the Triax performance watches including the Triax Mia, designed especially for women. These watches are made with comfort and style and make great corporate gifts for any promotional products application.

Nike sunglasses are designed with multiple, interchanging lenses so they can be changed for any lighting condition. River’s End offers three styles: The Skylon EXP, Haul and Revive and all three come with two lens colors. These styles are made with a lightweight frame, secure wrap temples and ventilated nose bridge to provide comfort. State-of-the-art UV absorbency provides 100% UVA and UVB protection.

Call 1-800-488-4800 or visit www.riversendtrading.com to learn more.

America’s remarkably versatile camouflage pattern will now be available to hunters for the very first time.

Tru-Spec by Atlanco, one of the leading suppliers of BDUs and other apparel to the law enforcement and military sectors, has announced its intention to introduce apparel manufactured from the original MultiCam to the commercial hunting market.

MultiCam is a virtually universal camouflage pattern designed to provide concealment in varied environments and light conditions. Initial product offerings, all marketed under the trade name Tru-Spec Outdoors, will be manufactured from comfortable, brushed 60/40 cotton/polyester. BDU-style zipper-fly trousers, BDU-style jackets, tuck-in field shirts and both baseball and boonie style hats will be available from prominent retailers beginning this summer

MultiCam was developed by Crye Precision in cooperation with the US Army Natick Soldier Research Center, as an experiment to determine whether a single camouflage pattern could be effective in limiting the visual and near-IR signature of a person across a wider range of environments and seasons. The problem of inappropriate camouflage became glaringly apparent shortly after US troops were deployed to Afghanistan, where daily footage of the US forces in action pointed out the inadequacies of desert, digital and woodland camo in some of Afghanistan’s diverse environments and seasonal shifts.

Crye Precision approached the problem scientifically by studying how wildlife adapted its camouflage protection to various geographic and climatological conditions. The result was a super versatile camouflage pattern that achieved even greater success than expected in multiple tests conducted by the US Army over a year-and-a-half period.

MultiCam Hunting Apparel from Tru-Spec Outdoors is available only from Tru-Spec dealers and distributors.

For a list of dealers, visit the Tru-Spec website at www.truspec.com . Or, call Tru-Spec at 1-800-241-9414.

Finally this month, G&K Services is introducing garments for the food-preparation industry made from a fabric designed to halt the spread of disease.

G&K Services Inc., a big supplier of work uniforms, is introducing a new line of antimicrobial uniforms and towels that it says can combat the spread of food borne pathogens.

The "BioSmart" garments, which debuted at the Food Marketing Institute Show in Chicago, will be marketed to meat and dairy processors, delicatessens, restaurants and other food-preparation companies. G&K says they are effective in stopping the spread of salmonella, E. coli, staphylococcus and hepatitis A.

"We think this one innovation clearly has potential for revenue in the tens of millions of dollars, incrementally, over the next year," said Scott Wallace, marketing senior vice president for Minnetonka-based G&K.

Through an exclusive partnership, G&K will make its uniforms using an antimicrobial fabric developed by Milliken & Co., a South Carolina fabric and chemical firm that has been working on the technology for about three years.

Milliken has long provided G&K with fabrics that are stain-, fade- and wrinkle-resistant and can stand up to lots of washing, said Milliken business development manager Bob Pestrak.

Now Milliken's BioSmart fabric, for which a patent is pending, will give G&K a high-tech marketing tool. A special coating binds pathogen-killing chlorine molecules to the surface of the fabric.

The protective coating gets "recharged" every time G&K washes it in an industrial-strength chlorine solution that has been registered with the Environmental Protection Agency.

As a result, "the fabric ... is always functioning at full strength," said Travis Greer, a senior workwear fabrics technologist at Milliken.

Independent tests by APPTEC Labs in Atlanta showed that the fabric was effective in killing 99.9 percent of bacteria and viruses.

Only G&K will wash the uniforms to ensure that the fabric maintains its pathogen-killing might. The chlorine in the fabric was found to not irritate workers' skin in tests done with customers and two ISO lab trials.

The BioSmart uniforms will cost roughly 15 percent more than standard uniforms, according to G&K.

Spokeswoman Sue Scott said surface contamination is a big fear among restaurant, grocery and other food firms because workers are constantly wiping tables, chairs, floors and bathroom surfaces.

If successful, the new product line could evolve beyond food services. Clinics, pharmaceutical labs, hospitals and schools are all potential clients, Greer and Wallace said.

To learn more, visit www.gkservices.com

Want to showcase your new products in this column or perhaps see it as a feature story? Send your news to Jackie@uniformmarket.com