Cavalier Bremworth has been redirected on to the crest of a wave of product sustainability running through consumer markets for interior textiles.
Plastics and synthetics have become increasingly decried for their carbon footprints and waste pollution.
Wool is natural, renewable, recyclable and sustainable.
Chief executive Paul Alston says he is vacating the top role in the re-energised company with Bremworth brand values confident in the new strategy and encouraged by the early results.
The carpet company, including its now-discontinued Norman Ellison brand, has turned its back on synthetics and will produce only all-wool carpets and rugs with natural fibres as components.
The next three years will see a return to consistent profitability and an end to remaining non-natural components in wool carpets, like polypropylene backing, latex glues and metal dyes.
The company vision is to be a global leader in designing and creating desirable, safe, sustainable and high-performing natural interior solutions.
Alston announced the new strategy in July and this week he and chair George Adams, in front of the Primary Industries Minister Damien O’Connor, Papatoetoe plant employees and invited guests, officially ended the synthetic carpet era.
“We have made our last synthetic carpet,” Adams exclaimed to cheers from staff members.
For the past 25 years the 50-year-old company churned out synthetic carpets alongside its more traditional and expensive New Zealand strong wool collections.
Alston says synthetics grew to account for half of output, but they competed in a low-cost commodity market in which Cavalier Bremworth and Norman Ellison struggled to differentiate themselves.
Once-proud NZ wool producers and their processors watched the oil-sourced Rhinos stamp all over the market, claiming qualities and attributes that wool carpets used to own exclusively.
Alston estimates that only 15-20% of carpet sales in NZ are now woollen and all the synthetic majority is imported either fully made-up or as synthetic yarn.
After a string of financial losses, a change of direction became imperative for Cavalier.
Bremworth, its premier brand, will be loudly and proudly NZ-sourced and made from strong wool.
He has no doubt that dismal strong wool prices will rise as sustainability demand fuels the return of wool-based interior textiles.
O’Connor beamed his way round the Papatoetoe plant, running hands over samples, greeting employees and asking questions.
“I told Paul (Alston) I would come here when he ditched synthetics,” O’Connor joked.
That is something Alston has been planning to do for some time.
Halfway through his six years at the top, Alston attended the Te Hono boot camp at Stanford University where he heard about consumer trends and the potential for NZ foods and fibres to get on board.
Cavalier was used as a case study; how it was a once-successful company harmed by synthetics and how it had to adapt.
“That experience was a big influence on my decision for the company to change direction,” Alston said.
Senior executives took the analysis further, to concentrate on what the company is good at – making the best woollen carpets in the world.
“Let us take advantage of the change in people’s beliefs in sustainability and regeneration,” he said.
“Cavalier was one of the last carpet companies in the world to manufacture synthetics, so change direction and be the first to stop.”
Commenting on the timetable for the transition, Alston says covid-19 had lengthened the process by a few months, but production and sales of woollen carpets was growing steadily.
Cavalier is strong in Australia, where 60% of its output is sold in a much larger market for interior textiles.
Beyond that, some 4% of sales are made in North America, where Alston thinks lies the biggest opportunity for wool growth and better margins.
He predicts Bremworth hand-crafted and machined wool rugs will also grow vigorously.
Alston has been a committee member of the Wool Industry Project Action Group, now morphed into the Strong Wool Action Group (SWAG), led by Rob Hewett and Andy Caughey.
“We believe we are on the cusp of a natural fibre renaissance led by more environmentally and socially conscious consumers and that a new approach is needed,” the group wrote in its June 2020 report to O’Connor.
The opportunity was to leverage our unique farming systems and natural and sustainable qualities of wool to further expand markets with consumers who value these attributes.
Cavalier Corporation has sold and leased back its Grayson Ave premises in South Auckland, to enable it to retire all debt and give it the transition time to restore revenue and profitability.
Alston says he leaves with the company in good shape, in cash surplus and totally dedicated to executing the new strategy.
He will continue serving as chief executive until his replacement is hired and at this time has no future roles or industries in mind.
