OrthoLite’s Going Local, This Time in Vietnam

OrthoLite has opened a new facility in the Ninh Binh province in North Vietnam.

The move is part of the premium insole maker’s strategy to localize the entire product creation process from end-to-end, while also “strengthening the company’s production capabilities” to better support its regional and global brand partners.

OrthoLite North Vietnam, led by country manager Michael Hsu, is a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility offering local production that reduces lead times and enhances supply chain resilience. The new facility also represents the insole maker’s commitment to the northern Vietnam region offering vertical integration strategy in a company owned and operated facility.

OrthoLite said global quality standards ensure consistency across all foam formulations, while also reducing waste and launching advanced digital monitoring tools for transparency and reliability, among other benefits.

“The northern Vietnam region represents part of OrthoLite’s global production strategy to align our factories and provide efficient and exemplary service directly to our local partners and tier 1 factories,” Hsu said. “With this strategic expansion, OrthoLite is well positioned to deliver high-performance comfort solutions locally for global brands.”

A leader in open-cell foam technology, OrthoLite was acquired by Coats Group plc in October in a $770 million deal. Coats became a “super tier 2” supplier in footwear components following completion of the transaction. The agreement to acquire OrthoLite was announced in July. OrthoLite founder and CEO Glenn Barrett joined Coats and continues to oversee the OrthoLite business. Coats’ footwear division is led by Pasquale Abruzzese as its CEO. The deal also included OrthoLite’s Cirql operation, which has a newly developed proprietary foam technology targeting the midsole market, using a biodegradable or fully recyclable offering

OrthoLite insoles are used in shoe options by many brands, including more recently the New Balance handmade $250 walking shoe from earlier this year and two shoe styles from Moncler, a luxury version of its Trailgrip sneaker and the Altive Mid winter boot, which were announced in August.