What's in Your Puffy: 'Track My Down' Is a Feather Trove of Information

Top image courtesy: redronafets

Fill power, country of origin, sustainability certifications — even the species a feather came from — ALLIED Feather & Down’s tracker offers a wealth of info.

Sustainability is so in right now. And brands do their level best to accommodate increasing user demand for socially and environmentally conscious wares.

Unfortunately, a morass of varying certifications (think Fair Trade, Bluesign, organic, RDS, recycled, etc.) and hang tags can do more to confuse buyers than inform them.

That’s why this winter, ALLIED Feather & Down — one of the outdoor industry’s largest suppliers of down — launched a comprehensive tool consumers can use to learn virtually everything about their down garment’s fill.

‘Track My Down’ Transparency Tool

It all starts with a hang tag. And it’s just one more thing to rip off that puffy. This might be the most important tag you find. Each product using ALLIED down — from Mammut to Columbia, Eddie Bauer, Cotopaxi, and more — sports a unique lot number.

Customers can enter that number (or scan a QR code) on the Track My Down page to uncover the story of their down. The lot number will identify a host of info on the type, origin, and quality of the garment’s fill.

But ALLIED worked to make this otherwise dry content a lot more usable and digestible for users.

“Down has traditionally been a generic ingredient with, at best, a fill-power rating to communicate quality to the consumer,” said Daniel Uretsky, president of ALLIED Feather & Down. “We knew it was necessary to develop a tool that would engage the potential purchaser of a down product to help them make more informed decisions.”

Traceable Down

To that end, Track My Down distills the key info up top. This includes the type of down, fill power, country of origin, and certifications. And with a few scrolls, consumers have access to a deep dive into almost all aspects of the down.

For example, what’s significant about down sourced from grey ducks (geese to anyone outside Minnesota)? And from which provinces in China do they originate?

Track My Down also provides context on the significance of fill-power numbers and other qualities like turbidity, down fiber, feather fiber, cluster, and a lot more. Basically, it’s peace of mind and then some for anyone concerned about what’s in their gear.

Best of all, more than 100 brands have signed on with ALLIED for this program, including some of the biggest names in the outdoors. To see how it works, head over to the Track My Down page and enter any of the lot numbers below: