Friday, March 29, 2024

Wool still seeking a purpose

Neal Wallace
The grim reality facing crossbred wool is few people see value in the fibre.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Producers see little merit investing in wool promotion or product development and consumers no longer value products made from crossbred wool as they once did, especially with carpets.

The Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand (WRONZ) noted in its 2016-17 annual result that synthetic fibres have eliminated many of the performance advantages of crossbred wool, allowing carpet manufacturers to use substitute fibre when wool prices became uncompetitive.

Some exporters have exclusive supply contracts for upholstery and carpets but new uses such as for filtration and slippers have been for small volumes.

WRONZ has clearly signalled it sees the future for strong crossbred in deconstructing the fibre to its constituent elements.

China took more than half NZ’s wool clip and Wool Services International chief executive John Dawson said there was talk in the market of new fabric being created that uses greater volumes of wool.

Buit he conceded there is no quick fix.

New uses for fine wool are much more prolific with the well-established active outdoor clothing market while media have reported the fine wool shoe manufacturer Allbirds, designed by former All White Tim Brown, has sold its one millionth pair of shoes after just two years in the market.

But former NZ Wool Services chairman Derek Kirke believes the carpet market will be increasingly difficult for wool as new, competing fibres, such as corn, enter the market.

“Sadly, unless we find another way to utilise wool, walking on wool as really the major outlet for the coarse end of the crossbred clip is going to be difficult.”

WRONZ, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and commercial industry invest about $3 million a year into researching new, high-value and volume uses for wool.

About $2.4m of that is invested into researching new uses and $600,000 into industry-good research.

WRONZ has set itself a goal of finding new, high-value uses for coarse wool but it is also co-funding a project with the NZ Merino Company on how to communicate the environmental credentials of wool based on WRONZ lifecycle research.

WRONZ chairman Derrick Millton wrote in the annual report while it continued working with traditional manufacturing industries to develop and authenticate new technical textiles “the majority of the research investment seeks new ways to utilise wool as a source of high-value keratin, for example, for use in cosmetics and high-value textile fibres.”

Millton is confident WRONZ researchers will find a financially viable alternative use for strong crossbred wool because despite its environmental attributes, at a retail level it was overshadowed by man-made fibre.

There is some optimism for wool as a counter to the pollution of the world’s oceans from microfibres from synthetic products.

“Perhaps the long story is about the benefits of wool, which, since the ending of the levy, we have never been able to tell the public.”

Fine wool prices at an all-time high tell Millton consumers are embracing wool’s attributes.

But he said the auction selling system does little to add or create value, other than set a price the rest of the market follows.

Lincoln University animal breeding and genetics expert Professor Jon Hickford believes finding new uses for wool, such as reconstituting it into elements for use as new bulk product, is a mistake because it would lose any identity or opportunity to differentiate from fossil fuel-based competitors.

“That is the wrong way to go entirely.

“Rather we should get it right – the dairy equivalent of whole milk powder versus baby formula.”

There are similarities with the wine industry where premium prices are being paid for similar varieties of wine such as sauvignon blanc, which sells from $8 to $40 a bottle, the price set by the quality of production and tailored to a market.

“The quality proposition is there (for crossbred wool) if we want to look at the wine industry. 

“It is a blueprint, something that is good and where growers have strived for excellence. They can do it well.”

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