Visiting Peenya: a buyer’s guide to a factory trip
Getting to Peenya, where to stay, what a day at our factory involves and how to fit in mill and laundry visits in Bengaluru.
Planning production around Indian festivals
Ugadi, Ramzan, Dasara and Diwali all change the pace of a Bengaluru factory. A calendar for buyers placing orders with Indian makers.
Buyers from Europe plan around Christmas and Chinese New Year. Buyers working with Indian factories also need to plan around a run of festivals that change how many people are on the floor. Here is how the year looks at Saalu in Peenya.
Ugadi, the Kannada and Telugu new year in March or April, closes the factory for one day, but many workers take a few days to travel home, so output dips for most of that week. During Ramzan, a number of our operators fast, and we shift breaks and allow an earlier finish for those who want it; output drops by about 5 percent for the month, and we plan for it.
The largest gap comes in October and November. Dasara, which Karnataka celebrates as a state festival, closes the factory for two days. Diwali follows three or four weeks later, and many of our workers from North Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Odisha travel home for a week. For about ten days, the factory runs at roughly 60 percent. Bonuses are paid before Dasara, so it is also our heaviest cash month.
For buyers, the practical advice is simple. Confirm bulk orders for Autumn–Winter shipment by mid-July, so they are sewn before Dasara. Avoid fabric approvals in the last week of October. Spring–Summer orders placed in November and December run without interruption until Sankranti in mid-January. We publish our holiday calendar to every buyer in January.
