In a move to transition the marketing of strong wool to increase consumer attention, Wools of New Zealand (WONZ) embarked on the new strategy in May.
“In the past we have been promoting wool as an ingredient, now we are promoting the product,” WONZ chair James Parsons said.
He likened it to promoting flour as an ingredient to sell bread.
“If you want to sell bread you promote bread as the product,” he said.
“We want to sell carpet, so now we are promoting the product, being carpet, not the ingredient, being the wool.
“The fundamental here is we can do that because we own the product.
“We have been working on this since May and the team has worked very quickly to get the supply chain set up with key manufacturers to the point we have our WONZ branded wool carpet going into 70 houses in Christchurch.”
These are homes that were destined to have synthetic carpet before WONZ brokered its wool carpet deal with Fletcher Living.
Parsons says shortening the supply chain and retaining the grower ownership through to the finished product has been the key.
“We can do it at an affordable price and be competitive with synthetic,” he said.
“And while there is still a big distance to run, we are excited.
“The key difference in what we are doing is not selling branded wool, but branded carpets and there is much more we can do in terms of branded product.”
Parsons says the move into carpet sales has been well-received by the NZ retail market.
“Once we have the domestic market fully up and running, we will implement the same strategy into the North American market,” he said.
WONZ is currently working with NZ Trade and Enterprise on this.
“The WONZ brand is highly regarded with the fern on it and there is still a lot of recognition with the brand (in North America) from the initial investment of the NZ Wool Board days,” he said.
“We are approaching and reactivating some of those relationships.”
But the priority is on getting the NZ domestic market right first.
“We are working well with the NZ market and once satisfied with this progress, we can pivot quite quickly to North America,” he said.
Meanwhile, the WONZ and Primary Wool Co-operative (PWC) collaboration, announced in August, is making good ground in terms of how the structure is bringing the two entities together.
Initial meetings have focused on navigating the complexities that come with linking the organisations.
“Discussions to date have been very constructive and positive with common values and shared vision of how we can make this a viable proposition.
Carrfields Primary Wool (CPW) as a 50% shareholder of PWC, is also supporting the collaboration.
“We are all committed to making a difference for our combined shareholders and the strong wool sector,” Parsons said.
PWC chair Hamish de Lautour says the co-op is excited and determined to reach the common goal of establishing and capturing the real value of wool for supplier-shareholders, the co-op and for the industry.
“We’re all growers in this together and understand that any initiatives on their own are just a tiny part of building demand,” De Lautour said.
“This is going to take time, trust in the process, collaboration and commitment.
“The reality is – if this supply chain is controlled by the growers’ organisations and the manufacturing is priced right, then the profit from the product, when related to the greasy wool component, can be many times higher than the market price of the wool.
“We believe we have a much better chance of consuming larger volumes of wool by selling quality affordable products in the first instance, while continuing to create high-end products as well.”
It is expected the collaboration venture will have a structure in place early in 2021.
