Thursday, March 28, 2024

Hemp industry told to build partnerships

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Find trusted partners through the supply chain and put the customer at the core of everything. That is the advice New Zealand Merino (NZM) marketing and development manager Hadleigh Smith has for the hemp industry as it looks to capitalise on the worldwide megatrends around heath and sustainability. In many ways, the industry is at the same point the fine wool industry was 20 years ago, before it embarked on its own and partnered with companies such as Icebreaker and Swanndri.
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“It’s an infant. We’ve seen massive growth in it all around the world,” Smith said.

It also needed a cohort of the willing – a passionate group to band together and drive change in the industry, he said at the iHemp Summit and Expo in Rotorua.

He says customer intimacy – understanding what customers wanted – was critical.

“We really do believe it is about getting as close as possible to your customer. We’re a relationship business and those relationships are what stands the test of time,” he said.

“It’s about listening to your customers and realising what they want, what are their paying points and what are their consumers asking them – and delivering solutions for them,” he said.

That connectivity enabled companies to ask for market premiums.

He says one of the early initiatives the merino industry did was hold a conference to bring the industry together in a way similar to what the hemp industry was doing in Rotorua.

“What we learned is that we had to do something different. We couldn’t rely on the traditional industry and players who wanted to keep rolling on as they were,” he said.

Smith says it was good to see people from different parts of the supply chain at the event because one of the early challenges NZM faced was its traditionally combative and isolated nature.

“Only through working together and long partnerships can you make a shift to value,” he said.

“Creating that value in the wool industry was complex, sophisticated and resource-intensive.”

The industry needed to create the fibre and materials that would perform for their customers, but with substance – a deep connective story – behind it.

He says NZM was open to working in partnership with the hemp industry, given that one of NZM’s philosophies is “blend with friends”, which was to look at ways of building partnerships with growers of natural fibres, such as the hemp industry.

NZ Hemp Industries Association chair Richard Barge says the current political and regulatory environment was a “perfect storm” for the hemp industry to continue its growth.

Licences for growing hemp have soared from 72 in 2015 to 1335 nationwide in 2020.

The Government was looking to shift away from fossil fuels and consumers looking for more sustainable products.

“And we’ve got an industry based on a natural fibre. Industrial hemp has a lot to offer in that space,” Barge said.

Barge believed the industry’s biggest issue was perception. People still confuse hemp with marijuana and medicinal cannabis.

It was not an easy industry to be profitable in currently, but he expected that to change as a result of that perfect storm.

“Until we get full plant utilisation, it’s always going to be an uphill struggle. We need the revenue streams from all parts of the plant,” he said.

“It’s a wonderful fibre to be using and when people wake up and see these inherent qualities in hemp, they’ll be saying that’s where we need to be in the natural fibre world.”

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