The outdoor sports clothing and accessories brand Buff is immersed in a growth plan that involves promoting sustainability and producing 100% of its articles in the Igualada (Barcelona) factory. With a significant increase in demand and many problems with international transport, Original Buff's strategy also includes intensifying the use of digital technologies to reduce delivery times for orders to customers in Europe and the United States.
These are the reasons that determine the transfer of the manufacturing of Buff caps, which account for 10% of total production, from Asia to Igualada, to ensure that by the end of 2023 all the brand's textile items are manufactured in Catalonia. It currently manufactures sportswear for various disciplines and accessories such as tubulars, balaclavas, headbands, and caps with and without visors.
For the local manufacturing of the caps, Original Buff has invested 1.4 million euros in the construction of a 1,500 square meter industrial building ---divided into three floors--- and another 200,000 euros in machinery. The investment amounts to five million euros if improvements in digitalization with the incorporation of the lean system to the entire factory installation are added. The relocation also implies the hiring of 70 people this year and another 70 in 2023, who will join the 108 employees assigned to the manufacturing lines. Original Buff's total workforce is 350 people working in the 13,000 square meters, between the factory and the offices it owns in Igualada.
Original Buff is popularly known for its seamless tubular face masks, to the point that the brand has become a generic name for this garment. The company and the buff were the work of Joan Rojas, a motorcycling enthusiast who devised the face mask for personal use and industrialized it in 1992.
Currently, 30 years later, the company is still in the hands of the Rojas Vives family, but has a professionalized management structure and a wider range of products. The latest data provided by the company for the 2020 fiscal year (closed on March 31, 2021) set turnover at 85 million euros, 63% more than in the previous fiscal year.
The CEO of Buff, David Camps, expressed that the intention is for part of the workers to come from the training center that the company has opened in Igualada. The company has already hired four young people this year – out of a total of 14 enrolled – who combine work with the education they receive at this center.
Almudena Cara, head of human resources at Original Buff, corroborates that "it is proving to be an arduous task to ensure generational replacement and expand the workforce, given that new generations are not attracted to this very mature sector and do not yet have the necessary training to replace our team of professionals." Cara highlights that the people who join will sew with diverse fabrics (lycra, polyester, fleece…) and with flat and overlock, or coverstitch or flatlock machines.
The Buff Sewing School is a project aimed at unemployed people that started during the first quarter of this year and aims to cover the shortage of professional garment makers in the textile sector, which is closely linked to the delocalization processes of many manufacturers, according to sector sources. The goal is to promote generational replacement in the sewing trade and ensure the continuity of this profession in the region and throughout Catalonia, where the textile industrial fabric still has a strong presence.
The Buff Sewing School has had the support of the FITEX Textile Foundation and the Igualada City Council. The school's headquarters are in the Igualada Fashion Lab, an innovation and creativity hub inaugurated last November in facilities of more than 700 square meters in the old Vives Vidal factory.