Tiger Workwear Interview with Peter Bloom

Listen to the Episode:

Links Mentioned in this Episode:

www.tigerworkwear.com

Contact Tiger Workwear

Jake Salemi
Sales@jollygroupinc.com,
(262)-569-3725

Read the Transcript:

Marty Hartman:
Welcome to the supplier spotlight interview. We are thrilled today to have Peter Bloom, who is owner and CEO of Tiger Workwear and Flamesafe FR Apparel. Peter, thanks for joining us today.

Peter Bloom:
Okay, thanks Marty. Thanks for inviting me to make comments. Hi everybody. I think I’d like to start off giving everybody a bit of a background of what I do and how I started, etc.

Marty Hartman:
Great.

Peter Bloom:
I started about 30 years ago, manufacturing work wear, and then I slowly moved into manufacturing garments, initially for the children’s wear market for the USA, where I supplied people like Costco and William CATA company, et cetera, making pajamas. And then we were supplying fabric to various people around the world, which was used for work wear. It was used for racing gear, it was used for liners inside buildings, et cetera. And this was about 25-30 years ago, and that was all under the umbrella of Flamesafe Workwear.

Peter Bloom:
So, then we moved our manufacturing from Australia to Mauritius. So, in Mauritius, I have a company, we call it FML, which is “Flamesafe Mauritius Limited.” In America, I have the company Tiger Workwear, which manufacturers goods in China and in Mauritius, and some in Australia, and then we hold stock in America and in Australia and we distribute throughout America. We typically can supply from Australia to America within three days, because we have a deal with USPS, I think it is, and they just get there quickly. So, we specialize and we offer only knitted products. So, we can make custom made garments, if the quantity is sufficient and we make standard product. Which would be hoodies, which are all category two, which is the ATPV ratings for the electrical arc industry. We’re also certified to 2112, which is the oil flash out of a fire standard.

Peter Bloom:
We manufacture Henley shirts, which are by the button up front shirts. We make t-shirts, we make high vis shirts, which are a little bit different to what you probably get in the U.S. Where you get predominantly monocrylic garments. Whereas the ones I’ve made, and taking a long time to get right, are produced from cotton, which passes the ANSI 107 standard. So, I would just check, you would get more comfort. Well, that’d be more comfortable. They’d actually be probably safer, because when people test a cotton product versus a monocrylic for ATPV, for the ratings, you always get a better result with the cotton. As a digression, an interesting point on that is, a knitted product, weight for weight with a woven product, will always get a better performance than the woven. And that’s primarily because, when you knit the garment, it encapsulates and traps air in the layers, because it’s like a double-knit, like interlock.

Peter Bloom:
A double knit, they call it, and you have air in between and that air-layer creates a better ability to withstand a flash. So, for example, a 220 GSM, which I think is your seven ounce fabric in knits, versus a seven ounces fabric in woven. A woven might get about an 8.7-9.2 cal rating, the knits will get 11-12 cal rating. So, you can see, it’s just substantially better. The other things I make, or manufacture, a lot of balaclavas, which I have to stock predominantly, which are category two, which is just a single layer balaclava and we make a double layer one which is category three, and we sell quite a few of those into the States. We sell a little bit, we in fact have made a triple-layer for Australia, which is a category four. But I don’t hold that, I hold a little bit of that, but I don’t really push it yet.

Peter Bloom:
So, the hoodies we manufacture predominantly, we sell a lot of zip-up hoodies. We also make the pullover style. I make Henley’s, come in multiple colors like: navy, khaki, gray, or I call it silver-gray. I have made a few high vis one’s, just for sampling. We make the T shirts and high vis, class three t-shirts. So it’s got the taping pattern for the USA market. And we also use segmented taping, so that way you don’t, if you sew a tape onto a knitted product, you’re actually defeating the purpose of the knit because you’re losing that stretch of the knit and the comfort factor. So we use a segment ed one, so the tape isn’t creating a rigid band around the product. It’s just nice and still scratches, et cetera. We do that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s good. Well, unfortunately for me, when I make it, we end up with probably 4 or 5% fallout because of the taping process. But that’s life.

Peter Bloom:
Yeah. So, we make that and I have got patterns and I’ve designed two-tone hoodies. Unless people, I’ll only make those for someone who wants to order them, it will take probably four or five weeks. We make those and all the products I offer are competitively priced, because my specialty is knits. I buy the yarn and I’m vertical all the way from dying it, right through to selling, and then distributing. So, there’s no multiple hands that it’s got a pass through. So, that’s why I can compete. Where I need to compete, I can compete, and I can offer the deal. And if people are interested, if any of your members have large potential programs and they’re having trouble competing against other people, all they have to do is reach out to me, write me an email or whichever way they want. Or they can FaceTime me or call me, whatever, and I will help them and we can make a package that works, and that way they can get into the market and be competitive and not worry about, just beat the competition if they need to.

Marty Hartman:
Right.

Peter Bloom:
So. I think that’s a unique advantage because what I have heard in America, what happens is the big companies have distributed in certain areas and then they say, “well, we won’t put anybody else on because of the area covered.” And it locks out other people from being able to source the product at a competitive price, to be able to compete.

Marty Hartman:
Well, that’s one of the things I noticed about your product line, is your pricing is very good and I’m glad you’ve mentioned how you do that with the vertical manufacturing. So, great. So, you mentioned you have a lot of inventory here in the United States, which is great. I think that’s probably one of the issues that member’s going to be curious about.

Peter Bloom:
Well, I hold it there and I hold it here, but it’s not an issue and I’m always topping it up. So, what happens is I hold a certain amount of each product and then, if I see the trends and moving that the sale progressing and growing, then I just keep upping the inventory and service the product.

Marty Hartman:
Right.

Peter Bloom:
And yeah, if it’s a typical navy type garment, where I run navy all the time, I can convert that into finished garments in about three to four weeks.

Marty Hartman:
Okay. So, what type of minimums for these custom garments are we talking about?

Peter Bloom:
I asked, well, I’m flexible. Okay. So typically I’d like to get 200 to 250 pieces. If they want 100, then it just costs me more to sew and set up the sewing line and develop the style. So, will be a bit more. But not a lot more. And so I think I would say 250 is my preference. But if I want 100, so be it.

Marty Hartman:
Okay, well that’s great. So, I know when members are looking at adding products to a program, that’s one of the things that’s important to them. So your products are primarily cottoned, which is great for breath-ability.

Peter Bloom:
I make cotton and there is cotton-nylon, as well.

Marty Hartman:
Great. So, are either of your products laundry friendly?

Peter Bloom:
Well, I have made, in the past, specifically for laundries, because laundries tunnel-dry the garments, and so they get hit with enormous heat and they’re pushed through the line quickly to dry fast. And so, if you have washed a cotton garment, let’s say that cotton garment weighs half a kilo, let’s say half a kilo is one pound. When you wet that garment, because it’s cotton, it will actually double in weight. And when it’s hanging on the hangers, then they become heavy, they stretch, etc. So, what I’ve done for the laundry trade is I made a garment that was a polo shirt. I made the whole shoulder system a bit different ,where I reinforced it, et cetera. So, when it hangs on the hanger, it doesn’t stretch and distort, et cetera. And I make the garments a little bit longer. So I’ll talk in centimeters, because that’s what I know.

Peter Bloom:
But a typical size L, in the marketplace, is get that 75-77 centimeters from the high point to the waist. I make all my garments an 81, so there’s four, five centimeters more. And that’s just to allow for any residual shrinkage, because in the marketplace over in America, you can buy regulars and you can buy longs and I just figured no, I’ll just make them all long. That way everyone’s happy. I never get a complaint about shrinkage and that way you just buy one style. I don’t have to hold double stock and inventory. So, I had made that product. I’m not running it at the moment. But I have a pattern and I know how to make it, etc. So, I did do that and it was quite successful. This is sold in the UK. So we did make that and if I had to do it in other garments, hoodies. The only problem with hoodies in the laundry trade is the brushing on the fleece will become bit matted on the back when it’s high heat, etc.

Peter Bloom:
I think it needs more of a gentle wash. So you preserve that nice fleece and the last of the fabric.

Marty Hartman:
Right. So, if member’s wanting to get a hold of samples, how would they do that?

Peter Bloom:
So, I have samples right over there. I’m happy to give them out. And what I would do to consolidate inventory, I would just charge them out. If they want to return them after 30 days, no problem. Return them and put a credit through and that’s it. If they want to use them and keep them, then there’ll be a small fee.

Marty Hartman:
Oh great. That’s a great way to actually get some in hand and a try them out with their customers. So, best way to get in contact with Flamesafe.

Peter Bloom:
So, I have an agent in America, Jake Salemi, so he can be a point of contact or they can write on my website. So, I have tigerworkwear.com, that’s the website. And they just click there to contact me on that site. Then, I’ll get the message and I can respond. I can FaceTime people and they can see me and we can chat. No problem. I mean, I notice most people in America have iPhones, so it’s pretty easy. So, I can do that. Well, Jake, I mean we’ve given that, Jake’s details are with you and all your members can have that and they can speak to him.

Marty Hartman:
Yes. We’ll make sure we add that to our information. On the page.

Peter Bloom:
Okay, thank you.

Marty Hartman:
So, Peter, what else would you like people to know before we end the conversation?

Peter Bloom:
Okay. So, I think what I’d like to probably tell everybody is, I’m not huge manufacturer like the big companies in America, but I’m not a small one. And so because I’m verticle and you can speak to the management easily. I think I’m relatively flexible and accommodating and if people have issues, they wanted to design something differently, et cetera, et cetera, I’m quite happy to discuss it with them and work through the process and we can come up with unique designs, et cetera.

Marty Hartman:
That’s great.

Peter Bloom:
So, for example, I’ll give you an example, in Australia, I sold a lot of garments in Australia, and in Australia I supply modacrylic garments, which it’s a different method of making the fabric FR . So, I do that. And you know, the customer, every year we have to come up with a new design or tweak it to improve it. So, we’re always creating something slightly better, so the customer is happier, et cetera. So, we do a lot of anti-static. So, that’s where I knit the anti-static carbon fiber into the fabric and we produce it. So, it’s FR. And I’ve done that with modacrylic. I do it with cotton and we have two anti-static yarns. We use a black one for the dark colors. We use a white one for the light colors, so it’s not so blatantly obvious it’s there. But even if you look carefully, you can see the pattern every 9-10 millimeters repeating and we offer that too.

Peter Bloom:
Now that’s just starting in American and it’s quite good for certain industries where you’ve got to just not attract any particles to the garments or keep it anti-static, so it’s just safer. So, I do that as well. Those I generally, I make those to order, but as I said, if it’s a navy top product, it’s three or four weeks and it’s done. That’s another product that’s probably a little bit unique for American, but it’s there. I can offer it if people are interested.

Marty Hartman:
Well, I hope our members take you up on your offer and contact you for samples and more information.

Peter Bloom:
Or, I can just have a nice chat to somebody from down under. I should tell everybody, I live in Melbourne, Australia, so I produce in China as I said, and I produced in Mauritius. And where I make the product is primarily determined by lead time, duty factors, and which product I’m manufacturing.

Marty Hartman:
Well, thank you very much for your time, Peter.

Peter Bloom:
It’s my pleasure. I look forward to hearing from your members and I wish them all the best in business and hopefully somebody will reach out and we’ll help you.

Marty Hartman:
I hope so. Thank you.

Peter Bloom:
Okay, Thanks Marty. Thank you very much. Bye now.