Identifying Egyptain Cotton_Turkey_PRINT_FILE

NO MORE MISLABELLING
FOR EGYPTIAN COTTON

WHY HAS EGYPTIAN COTTON BEEN MISLABELLED?

In recent years, global cotton prices and the demand for these products rose to
record levels. Especially for premium cotton products like ELS (extra-long staple).
To meet the increase in demand, manufacturers blended cotton of different fibre
qualities and types. Using non-ELS cottons such as upland cotton reduced
the quality of the finished product.
This blending of different fibre types results in an impure product, which was still
being labelled and sold as 100% Egyptian cotton.
Until now, there has been no effective methodology to check that cotton products
labelled as 100% Egyptian cotton are in fact genuine Egyptian cotton.
This resulted in the manufacturing and labelling of
cotton products being uncontrolled.

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In 2016, a leading retailer found that all 750,000 of their products didn’t
contain any Egyptian cotton.

This research prompted global retailers to check the authenticity of their
products. The results showed that there was a big discrepancy in the
market place for Egyptian cotton.

BVCPS exclusive agreement to identify 100% Egyptian Cotton

To help combat the mislabelling of Egyptian cotton and to protect our retailers against false
claims made by manufacturers, BVCPS has signed an exclusive agreement to test the
traceability extraction of DNA from cotton fibre, cotton fabric and cotton products. Using PCR
techniques we are able to identify the authenticity of Egyptian Cotton products.

The test methodology relates to methods for isolating biological macromolecules
including nucleic acids from cotton fibres and yarns. Woven, knitted, fabric or finished apparel.

The isolated macromolecules contain information encoded in the sequence of their building
blocks, which can be used to characterise the cotton fibre or identify the origin or source of the
cotton fibre "mainly Egyptian Cotton ".

Is this testing method reliable ?

Bureau Veritas has made an alliance with ‘Science Horizons laboratories, Egypt’, based on their
competency and recognition and through successful validation of their methodology.

To confirm the methodology a testing exercise was organised by BVCPS. Keeping the sample
identity and fibre types disclosed, BVCPS submitted 7 different samples each containing a
known variety of cotton types.

Not only did the results match the information we held for each sample, the tests also identified
the exact blend of cottons and the percentages of each cotton type used in the non Egyptian
Cotton products.

Has the methodology received any official endorsements?

Dr. Mohamed Negm & Dr. Suzan Sanad of Cotton Research Institute, Giza and also Science
Horizons, Egypt, have received accreditations and endorsements for their ‘Internal DNA
extracting method’ from multiple bodies, which include:

Ministry of Scientific Research Academy of scientific Research & Technology, Egypt
University of Agricultural Science, College of Agriculture-Dharwad, India.
Egyptian Accreditation Council "EGAC, ISO 17025"
International Laboratories Accreditation Cooperation "ILAC"

BUREAU VERITAS CONSUMER PRODUCTS SERVICES UK
31 Kingsland Grange, Woolston, Warrington, WA1 4RW, Cheshire, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1925 854 360 Fax: +44 (0)1925 851 654
Email: [email protected] www.bureauveritas.co.uk/cps