After nearly a decade of working to prove that burlap-like hemp can be as soft as cotton, Naturally Advanced Technologies Inc. has caught the attention of some of the world’s biggest consumer brands.

Now it’s on the verge of generating revenue from its technology.

“The company is an eight-year overnight success,” said CEO Ken Barker.

The Portland, Oregon-based company this month announced a string of deals aimed at commercializing its Crailar Fiber Technology, which employs an enzyme treatment to make hemp and other organic fibers suitable for apparel and other uses.

The most notable is a joint development agreement with Hanesbrands Inc., which is among the world’s largest consumer apparel brands with $4.2 billion in sales last year.

Under the agreement, Naturally Advanced will retrofit existing Hanes dyeing equipment with the company’s enzyme process to study how its organic fibers can be entered into mainstream production.

If that phase is successful, the companies will work toward a marketing plan for Crailar in various Hanes categories and determine how it could be commercialized.

But whether hemp can rise above niche status to mainstream appeal will have a lot to do with cost.

In a conference call with investors, Barker said that because Crailar shrinks far less during production than cotton, the resulting savings could bring its final cost closer to regular cotton than organic cotton, which is 60 percent more expensive than regular cotton.

While Barker said it’s too early to guess how lucrative the Hanes deal could become, the partnership serves as “absolute validation that our technology is viable and capable of mainsteam apparel production.”

The deal was borne from successful tests conducted at North Carolina State University which, according to Barker, proved hemp can easily transition away from being a niche consumer fabric.