Silk from worm to weave

I had a engaging discussion and plant tour with the CEO of Utexrwa, a textile manufacturer in Kigali. Their core business is processing cotton from the raw material all the way to finished clothing products. But the fascinating aspect of their business is their emerging silk program.
Utexrwa claims to be the only vertically integrated silk company in the world! They have mulberry bushes surrounding the factory, silk worms that they grow from eggs, the staff to unwind the silk cocoons, and the machinery to spin the silk and turn it into material.

And if that wasn’t enough, they are now beginning to innovate with banana fiber, a highly absorbent material. Utexrwa engineers built two custom machines to turn the core of a banana tree trunk into fiber and then they blend that with cotton to make a highly absorbent cloth.

With over 700 employees and ambitious growth plans, Utexrwa is a wonderful example of business innovation in Rwanda as a catalyst for social change.