Rival wool brands battle it out in Vegas

Two rival New Zealand wool brands were on display in Las Vegas last week. Photo / Supplied

Prince Charles is an unexpected ally of Kiwi sheep farmers.

Two weeks ago in an 18th century Cambridgeshire barn the heir to the British throne announced

The Wool Project, a five-year international campaign to make wool fashionable again.

Inspired by tenants on his estate who outlined the poor returns they were getting for their fleece, the Prince will spearhead a push to use natural, sustainable and biodegradable wool over manmade textiles.

Armed with a video message from the eco-minded royal, the British Wool Marketing Board held a United States launch of the campaign at the annual North American flooring-fest, Surfaces, in Las Vegas last week.

A few stands away at the Wools of New Zealand (Wonz) camp the timing could not have been more poetic.

The Wonz staff had not joined the armies of suited Las Vegas convention-goers just to hand out fluffy toy lambs and sheep-shaped biscuits.

Wools of New Zealand's presence at Surfaces, and three weeks earlier in Germany at the large European event Domotex, is the start line in a race to save the Kiwi wool industry.

"Wool and yarn prices are cheaper today than they were in 1987," says Stuart Hay, vice-president of big American wool carpet and rug maker Nourison, as he mans the stand next to Wonz.

A year ago executives from Wool Partners International, the PGG Wrightson-backed company that now owns Wools of New Zealand, went on a pilgrimage to the States.

This is a country where only 3 per cent of carpets purchased are wool.

Americans literally do not know the difference between nylon and wool, Kim Gavin, longtime executive editor of the US trade magazine Floor Covering Weekly, tells the Herald.

The marketing of wool has been allowed to lapse, and the efforts of the huge synthetics industry have been highly effective, she says. "They all think Stainmaster is a carpet."

An awareness of sustainability is relatively new and confined to affluent urban areas such as New York and the northwest coast.

Even though the commercial construction sector is now concerned about using green materials and systems, "as much as that sector talks about it and wants it, they won't pay for it", Gavin says.

In addition, wool competes with the green claims of the synthetics industry - Stainmaster advertises that greenhouse-gas emissions have been reduced in the making of the fibre which is also recyclable.

Wool Partners chairwoman Theresa Gattung and her delegation did the rounds of manufacturers in Georgia, the heart of US carpet making, and came to a conclusion.

The only way to get better returns for farmers is to relaunch our wool as a high-end, sustainable fibre and charge prosperous Northern Hemisphere consumers a premium for it.

Amid the politics and in-fighting of the New Zealand wool industry - which has seen marketing of the fibre deteriorate to the point that much of the so-called New Zealand wool sold overseas is a hybrid of other fibres - turning a commodity into a luxury product is a big ask.

Wool Partners' solution is Laneve, a brand of 100 per cent pure, traceable New Zealand wool that meets a set of externally audited environmental and animal welfare standards.

Surfaces is Laneve's first official American outing, following its European debut at Domotex.

But it seems it is hard to leave the politics at home. As our flailing and notoriously fragmented wool industry strives to make a splash amid a sea of hardwood flooring and synthetic carpets, two competing New Zealand brands have been born.

Down the hall in a conference room at the same casino complex rival company Elders Primary Wool launches its own top-end pure New Zealand wool brand, Just Shorn.

Wool Partners executive director for North America Elise Demboski speaks plainly.

"I could have done twice as much at this show if I didn't have to spend my time answering questions about these Elders guys."

IF THE impending death of the wool industry sounds over-dramatised, consider the figures.

The national sheep-breeding flock has almost halved since the 1980s.

Last year 23.9 million ewes and ewe hoggets were mated, down from 42.5 million in 1989. That same year wool exports earned the country $1.795 billion. In the year to last June the figure was $569 million.

Crossbred or carpet wool makes up 67 per cent of the New Zealand clip.

The nation may have practically been built on wool bales, but as things stand if better prices aren't achieved for this fibre the wool industry could be brought to its knees - some say potentially taking the sheep meat industry with it.

Wool Partners chief operating officer Mike Jones says most wool carpets are an 80/20 wool/manmade construct with only about 60 per cent of the wool component coming from NZ.

This is where Laneve has its point of difference - 100 per cent bright, clean New Zealand wool which can take pastel dyes, unlike its darker and coarser British rival.

The fleece is given a code when it is shorn which follows it through the value chain, from scouring to dyeing, spinning and manufacturing.

Carpet customers will be able to enter the code on the Wools of New Zealand website and see the very farm the fibre came from.

The Just Shorn concept is exactly the same. In this case an invisible traceable fibre is put into the wool so that it can tracked from its source.

Just Shorn carpets will come with a number on an ear tag which can likewise be entered on the website, taking the customer to video messages from the farmers who grew the wool.

Both products must meet a certain high set of standards.

This is the first time the "farm to floor" idea has been employed to market carpet wool.

In principle, retailers wandering through the Wonz stand love it.

"I think it's a fantastic idea," says Foster Owen of Clifton Carpets in Dallas, Texas.

Dallas is a sophisticated, urban market with a lot of new money. "In the higher-end lines it's nice to have something that's new, something we can talk about.

"There's other wools that the content is so shaky as far as what's been blended into it."

However, his well-heeled clientele aren't so bothered about sustainability. "It's a quality issue first, then they love to be part of saving the earth."

In true American entrepreneurial style, Owen believes there's room for both Just Shorn and Laneve, just as there is Cartier and Tiffany.

Will Osborne from Pierce Flooring in Billings, Montana says his wool carpet customers are typically holiday home owners, buying their "million-dollar cabin" in the wild Midwest.

With the recession that business has dried up. The US carpet market overall is down 30 per cent, or $3 billion over three years.

While the Laneve concept will have meaning to a small group of top-end clients, he says: "I have got to be able to show value right now."

Terry Ann Olsen from Foremost Interiors in Salt Lake City, Utah, says her affluent clients are interested in renewables and will be prepared to pay more if they can see the advantage.

More generally, though, retailers are going to have to educate their customer base that wool is not out of their league. "People think wool is delicate, hard to clean ... something for the wealthy or people who don't have to care."

But on a wear basis, and with its hypo-allergenic properties, wool is economical, she says.

Olsen has found the Just Shorn versus Laneve issue "confusing".

She is an IDG retailer, one of the 120-strong buying group Just Shorn has done a deal with. But IDG is not dictating to its members and Foremost Interiors will probably stock both brands.

It is Wonz's specially designed WoolClean spot removal product that draws Mary Million of Million Floor Center in Springfield, Kentucky, into the stand.

Synthetics are cheaper and she sells far more of the manmade product than wool to her farming community clientele.

Laneve will probably not have value in Springfield. "It's not like in the city where people are interested in saving the environment."

Much carpet is sold through agents in the US, and Wonz holds a well-attended agents and retailers breakfast during the Surfaces show to explain Laneve.

"I think they should get together and work it out, personally," says agent David Windley of the Just Shorn/Laneve situation.

At the manufacturing end Nourison's Stuart Hay says having competing brands is "totally ridiculous".

"Both of them have limited resources, they both have the same end point and they need to find a way to join forces."

What is already happening is manufacturers are playing the two off against each other to get a better deal, he says.

"All of us will screw our suppliers for every last cent we can, particularly in today's environment."

Eric Cooper is vice-president of technical operations for giant floor covering manufacturer Tai Ping.

He agrees two competing brands may give manufacturers some leverage in terms of pricing.

But he is sold on the Laneve concept, which he says ties together other initiatives the company has in the renewables area.

"Because architects, designers, they do ask that question on a regular basis - 'how green are you?'. We can now back that up."

And there is margin to be had in wool, he says, particularly at the residential end.

Glen Eden, based in Calhoun, Georgia, has been making New Zealand wool carpets since it started in 1993, and is an inaugural Laneve partner.

It also sells the Banks Peninsula brand, a high-quality and close-to-organic fibre produced by a collective of farmers on the peninsula.

Glen Eden owner Wendell Davis says the company is "kicking around ideas" on how to market the label.

The clean, green, high-end wool story is one that is still finding its way, he says.

"This show is about asking more than answering."