[A]sk Kirk Smith how many colors of yarn are used at Cabot Hosiery Mills, and he’ll tell you: “Too many.”
The family-owned factory that produces Darn Tough socks will include up to 16 different threads in a single design. The operation spins out 22,000 pairs of socks every single day.
From the outside, the Northfield production facility isn’t much to look at — it’s big, beige and unmarked. But inside, thousands of spools of multicolored yarn hang from the ceiling, while computerized machines knit the threads into socks.
“If you had seen me when they took me on my tour when I was being interviewed here, I was like a kid in a candy shop,” said Smith, the plant’s manager of manufacturing operations. “I didn’t want to leave the line. I just wanted to keep seeing what was going on.”
Lined up in rows with their electronic displays blinking, the mill’s 184 knitting stations resemble slot machines at a casino. But they have a more predictable output: roughly every five minutes, each one dispenses a fresh new sock.
Darn Tough is in the midst of an ambitious five-year expansion plan. In order to increase production, they’re adding more machines, bringing their total to 236 — for now. Ric Cabot, the company’s president and CEO, said those machines will increase the mill’s production by 1.5 million pairs of socks per year.
Accommodating the new equipment required moving their packaging and distribution areas to another building about a mile down the road. That means the company’s annual “sock sale” — two weekends in November when locals walk the warehouse looking for deals on factory seconds — will take place at the company’s satellite location this year.
There are two sock seasons each year, and the factory works about six months ahead of schedule. Right now, they’re mainly producing fall socks.
Each piece is knit, washed, dried, boarded, folded, inspected and packaged in Northfield, before being shipped off to the company’s distribution center in Cleveland, Ohio.
“The Cabots have always been very dedicated to their Northfield roots,” Smith said. “Could there be better places in the state? Maybe, but this is where they started. This is where they have a connection and this is where we’ll be.”
