WOOL | INNOVATION
Some products need higher bulk wools such as Perendale or Corriedale but in general the Romney and Romney cross wools are all in the category the company can utilise.
Opportunity knocks for strong wool Reports, reviews and rhetoric about the strong wool sector’s woes have dominated headlines for decades, seemingly to no avail with prices plumbing a new nadir earlier this year. Yet behind the scenes, a group of Kiwi entrepreneurs have been working on a project that just could, feasibly, turn the tide. Andrew Swallow reports.
I
n most regions of the United States and Europe these days, nearly all buildings must meet minimum energy consumption standards, set by Governments seeking to reduce carbon footprints and improve people’s living and working environments. Those standards have made insulation not just desirable, but a legal requirement, and increasingly individuals, businesses, and public sector organisations are looking for sustainable, environmentally friendly and healthy products to meet that need.
28
It’s a massive market and one that “makes our product very attractive,” Ed Langston of New Zealand wool processor-marketer, Wool Life says. He and Wool Life founder and coshareholder, Stephen Fookes, have spent the past three years market testing a woollen equivalent of the polystyrene balls used for insulation in cavity walls in the US. Called Insulknops, they can also be used in furnishings such as bean bags, duvets and pillows. Initially made on contract overseas, in
January this year a processing plant at Te Poi, eastern Waikato, was commissioned. It has a capacity – effectively a clean wool requirement – of up to 3000 tonnes a year. That’s about 2.5% of NZ’s total wool production, and they see that as just the start. Long-term they believe the markets they’re targeting are big enough they could account for up to a third of the NZ clip. Covid lockdowns here and overseas hampered the plant’s commissioning but in October the first shipping container
Country-Wide
December 2020
