By Behnam Ghasemi, Editor-in-Chief
ISTANBUL — Kohan Textile Journal: As global competitive pressures and changing economic climates alter the production map, advanced engineering stands as the primary line of defense for premium textile machinery brands. At the ITM 2026 exhibition in Istanbul, Kohan Textile Journal spoke exclusively with Giuseppe Benigni, Sales Director of Bianco S.p.A..
Celebrating 52 years of Italian engineering excellence, Bianco specializes in high-tier machinery for fabric finishing, inspection, and packaging. In this insightful interview, Benigni outlines their game-changing energy-saving solutions, their operational outlook for the Turkish textile ecosystem, and why technological acceleration is the only viable path to outlasting mass-market duplication.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): To start, could you please give our readers an overview of Bianco S.p.A. and your primary manufacturing focus areas?
Giuseppe Benigni: Bianco is a 52-year-old Italian machinery builder. Our manufacturing core focuses heavily on textile finishing, packaging, and fabric inspection systems. Our classic portfolio includes our well-known slitting lines, and we produce complete entry solutions for stenters—such as padders, dogals, and weft straighteners.
We also manufacture our Happy Scour lines for pre-stenter fabric cleaning, compacting lines, Sanfor machines, and full lines for tubular fabrics including balloon squeezers and tubular compacting. Furthermore, our dedicated packaging and inspection unit covers everything from traditional manual inspection to automated camera-based inspection and robotic roll-handling logistics. We are a massive company covering the entire backend of fabric processing.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): What distinct innovations or technical advantages are you presenting here at the ITM exhibition?
Giuseppe Benigni: We are highlighting an evolutionary upgrade on our standard slitting line. We have engineered a system that replaces the traditional, classic squeezing padder with a high-efficiency vacuum system.
The primary feature of this vacuum system—especially when processing synthetic fabrics—is that it achieves a 20% reduction in residual moisture on the fabric. When you run that fabric into the stenter, that 20% less water translates directly to massive energy savings. Over a year of running, a factory saves a tremendous amount of gas and money. It changes the operational cost structure entirely.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): Bianco has maintained a presence in Turkey for decades. How do you evaluate the current local economic climate?
Giuseppe Benigni: Bianco has been deeply active in the Turkish market for over 30 years. In fact, looking at the last five years collectively, Turkey has been the absolute best-performing market globally for Bianco.
Of course, this year the geopolitical and economic situation has created market headwinds. But our philosophy is that especially when times are tough, you must be physically present to support your partners. Turkey also serves as an invaluable geographic midpoint and connection hub for surrounding markets that we actively supply, including Egypt, Iran, Russia, and India.
Read more: Why Salt is Essential in Reactive Dyeing but Not in Reactive Printing
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): You specifically highlighted Iran. What is your perspective on the potential of the Iranian textile trade?
Giuseppe Benigni: Iran is a sad story structurally because of its isolation, and I sincerely hope the market recovers as soon as possible. Historically, the Iranian textile market was incredibly large and robust. While the current daily realities are difficult to map completely, it remains a market with excellent recovery potential. Whenever that stabilization happens, Bianco will absolutely be there to supply the local industry.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): How do you foresee the future of the textile industry, particularly with the aggressive rise of high-volume competition from Asia?
Giuseppe Benigni: That is the critical question. In this current climate, making long-term projections is incredibly tough; I can barely forecast a single month out, whereas we used to look six months ahead with ease.
The reality is that Chinese manufacturers and brands are advancing rapidly. The old narrative that Chinese machines are low quality is dead; their machinery has become highly reliable, and their prices are impossible to match because, well, it’s China.
Our only path forward is continuous, unyielding technological innovation. To survive, European manufacturers must stay at least two steps ahead every single year. If we slow down, we will be copied, and they will sell that copied technology at half our price. Our defense mechanism is to invent something fundamentally new every year, occupying the high-margin, top-tier technical niche. This is why Bianco keeps 100% of its production strictly in Italy, even as others move production to Asia to save costs.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): What is your view on the shifting dynamics across North and Central Africa?
Giuseppe Benigni: North Africa has been an exceptionally strong market for Bianco for over 20 years, particularly Egypt, which is a massive industrial force for us, alongside Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.
Central Africa, however, is a much more complex arena. The Chinese economic and governmental presence is exceptionally strong there. If a country’s industrial development is subsidized or guided by loans from the Chinese government, those mills will naturally buy Chinese machinery. That is a political and macro-level decision that is out of our hands.
Kohan Textile Journal (Behnam Ghasemi): To close, how central is sustainable manufacturing to Bianco’s corporate vision?
Giuseppe Benigni: It is quite literally the only key to survival that we have left. True innovation now means mastering resource-saving chemistry and engineering. It means redesigning machinery to execute the exact same finishing processes but with significantly less manpower, fewer chemicals, less water, and reduced thermal energy. Sustainability is our ultimate tool for keeping our customers profitable and keeping our business alive.
