We Sell Institutional and Credential Clothing
Institutional
Our Institutional clothing or what is commonly known as “rags” is sold by the pound in 350lb, 1,000lb and 1,300lb bales. We can also sell unbaled, loose clothing in bags by the semi-trailer if desired. We prefer to sell by the shipping container or semi-trailer load since it is more efficient for us. Exceptions for smaller orders have been made but please be prepared to pay a few pennies a pound more.
Because we work with so many suppliers, we can find the perfect lot of clothing for you. If you sell on consignment and consignments are low, we can find you a consistent supply of consignment-grade clothing from other stores that have too much. Our institutional clothing has been independently tested with average yields higher than industry standards. In fact, several large grading facilities as well as two national thrift store chains have described our clothing as “very good” and “above average” with yields equivalent to credential cloth. For this reason, our institutional clothing is sought continually be a number of grading facilities and orders are generally a few weeks out.
Our institutional clothing comes from a wide variety of thrift stores, both general and boutique in nature. We have a large representation of brands that would be found in cities and towns with populations between 5,000 and 25,000. We do pull clothing from the twin cities and high-end, exclusive clothing can be found, but a more representative source region would be St. Cloud, Mankato or Alexandria. Our Institutional clothing does have shoes, but the percentage is lower than usual since many of our suppliers separate shoes from cloth for our shoe program. Our rags will include hats, gloves and textile accessories including linens, bedding & blankets, towels, decorative pillows, a few stuffed animals, We do not accept bed pillows, microbead products or other items that contaminate our bales.
We also have sources all year long for credential, untouched clothing as well as excess, sorted clothing.
Credentials
Our Credential clothing is untouched, unsorted and unreviewed and still in its original bags or boxes. It may include brand new clothing with brand new tags, textile accessories and more. It does not include pulled or rotated thrift store clothing.
We have several really good sources for credentials and these, again, are very successful thrift stores that have lots and lots of excess. When we are contacted to buy credential clothing, we first visit the organization in person and inspect the clothing ourselves. If it passes our muster, we will spend time setting up a methodology with staff for ensuring that their “reviewed” clothing does NOT get mixed with their credential clothing. This usually entails establishing a separate location in their backroom with separate bins or bringing an outside storage device on site so that there is no chance of mix up. We only accept credential clothing if it comes in its original bags or boxes. We will know the difference and we monitor for it continually. We stress the fact that our customers will know the difference too. If credential is mixed with rags, there are distinct signs. Our partners participating in this program are paid well and are made to understand that as the purchasing customer, your yields MUST be good!