A dyehouse and more recently a finishing line have been restored on site since the cyclone and the company announced on Thursday it was spending $6m to reinstate its yarn-making equipment.
Bremworth’s new chief executive Craig Woolford said the investment was “huge” for the plant and business.
“Basically, what it is going to enable the plant to do is make yarn,” he said.
“We haven’t been able to do that for a long time [at Napier].
“It will be a fully-functioning spinning plant at the end of October.
“That was its sole purpose [before the cyclone] – a spinning plant.”
The woollen yarn from Napier will be sent to Auckland to be made into carpet. Bremworth also has a spinning plant in Whanganui.
“For the past couple of years, Bremworth has been buying yarn from all around the world, with little control over quality etc, and having to carry huge inventories to cover the long lead times,” Woolford said.
“So it makes perfect sense to bring all our yarn manufacturing back in-house with the spinning plant in Whanganui and the spinning plant [in Napier], which will be fully operational at the end of October.”
The Napier plant will run as a smaller model than it was before the cyclone.
“To put it in perspective, we had up to six cards [large machines for making yarn] running, we are now going to have two cards running fulltime,” he said, of the new Napier facility.
“Unfortunately, the wool share of the New Zealand soft flooring market has been shrinking.
“So we have sized the business up to our market share at the moment.
“There is significant investment going into the sales side of our business and, I guess, if we get to a point where we are pushed to capacity, then we can put another card on.”
He said that would lead to more staff being hired.
Not including the 40 new staff being hired, the plant has a team of about a dozen for the existing finishing line and dyehouse, plus further engineers on site.
The exterior of the plant is still visibly damaged from the cyclone and Woolford said that would be fixed, probably by the end of the year. Part of it will also be knocked down.
Bremworth is an NZX-listed company.
In February, the company announced it had reached a “full and final settlement agreement” with its insurers in relation to the cyclone of $104m.
Another significant company in the wool industry, WoolWorks NZ, is located directly across the road from Bremworth on Waitangi Rd and underwent a full rebuild after the cyclone.
Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke’s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.
