Specializing in the sublimation of sportswear, Fradelsport experienced in March a situation that also affected many other industries: orders fell to a minimum. But those responsible did not give up in the face of the challenges that the pandemic created. In response, Famalicão's textile company reconverted production and, a month later, began producing personal protective equipment, including masks, gowns, cuffs, cogulas and boot covers.
It was even the first company in the municipality to obtain CITEVE certification for reusable masks for social use. Since then, Fradelsport, which has 60 workers and at no time considered resorting to layoff, has produced 400,000 masks.
Were it not for the effects caused by Covid-19, the company, whose average annual turnover is around two million euros, had this year the objective of increasing turnover by 50 percent. A goal that now needs "two or three years" to be achieved, admitted this morning the managing partner, Paulo Reis, during a visit by the Mayor of Famalicão to the manufacturing unit, located in Fradelos, under the pretext of the Roadmap for Innovation (“Roteiro pela Inovação”).
However, according to Paulo Reis, the masks business allows to balance the gross value and thus help to maintain the 2019 invoicing volume, namely through exports to the French and German markets. An operation that is expected to last only two or three more years, not least because the first signs of slowdown are beginning to appear.
On the contrary, the demand for sportswear is already picking up, "after four months of residual sales for this sector", in the face of a standstill in the different sports competitions throughout Europe. The company represents sports brands such as Macron, Adidas, Lotto, Nike, Umbro, Mikasa, among others. "Exports to Italy and Spain are now allowing us to produce sporting goods again," he said.
For his part, Paulo Cunha used the example of Fradelsport to praise the ability of famalicenses companies to readapt, contributing to the recovery of the economy. In fact, the purpose of the visit was also this: to signal how much the textile companies of Famalicão have known, in a context of enormous difficulty and adapting to circumstances, create conditions to maintain productive activity.
"Companies have not stopped wanting to continue growing, produce more, export more and employ more. What happened was that those projects were delayed in time. And we are here particularly because Fradelsport was the first company in Famalicão to certify a mask, appearing in the front line of those companies that created a response for the community at the level of public health," highlighted the Mayor.
An immediate response as a result of the capacity installed in Portuguese companies, namely those of Famalicão, which, with the production of masks, has contributed to the current phase of deconfinement that the country and a substantial part of the world is doing. "There has been a response that is very commensurate with the business sector. And Famalicão was once again, in the national and international context, a reference. It was not for us, as we are, Textile City and for us to know how to take advantage, as we have, of the presence among us of CITEVE", he concluded.