How Hunterville brand Honest Wolf is marketing wool as a luxury item

Sophie Hurley inside the Honest Wolf shop in Hunterville. Photo / Bevan Conley.

A young farming couple are bucking the trend of the low price of wool by turning the wool clip from their sheep into designer bags.

Along State Highway 1 in Hunterville sits Honest Wolf, a brand Sam and Sophie Hurley have been building together since 2020, that sells high-end wool accessories and luggage.

The wool comes off the backs of their 25,000 sheep from their Papanui Estate farm.

The durable quality of wool, and its soft feel, have provided endless creative potential for the Hurleys who design all of their products, which range from briefcases and overnight bags to felt caps and wallets.

The items come with a high price tag - an individual bag costs up to $499 - that contradicts the current perception of wool in the New Zealand market as being low value.

A declining wool price made the Hurleys dream up the idea of Honest Wolf, as a more innovative way to sell and market their wool.

“It is such a premium product and the price doesn’t reflect that, and that’s because synthetic fibres are cheaper in the industry which makes it more difficult for a sustainable, natural fibre to compete,” Sophie Hurley said.

Sam Hurley on their Papanui farm. Photo / Bevan Conley.

In August, the Chronicle reported on Whanganui farmers dumping low-cost wool because little to no profit could be made from selling it.

But the Hurleys’ willingness to take a risk has paid off - they can bring in a higher farmgate price for their wool alongside the additional returns they make from selling their products.

“We buy the wool off the farm at a better price than what the market is paying for wool at the moment, so we last purchased wool from the farm for $4 per kilo which is a couple of dollars over the farmgate price.”

Hurley said they weren’t alone in trying new avenues for wool, as many other farmers had also been turning away from the traditional route of wool into carpet-making.

It allowed farmers to have better control over their wool, she said.

Transforming the shorn wool off of Papanui Estate’s sheep is no easy feat, and the process of making the felted totes and satchels with leather trimmings is a long one.

Thirty per cent of the farm’s A-grade wool clip gets sent to Northern India where it is dyed and made into felt.

Then the felt is transported down to New Delhi and made into bags before the products are returned back to New Zealand.

Hurley said ideally they would want to be doing parts of the process within New Zealand but that was not possible.

“People immediately jump at the thought that it’s cheaper and that’s why we’ve chosen to do it there, but it’s actually our only option.

“It is logistically really tricky with the time differences, and just not physically being there, and it is expensive.”

Sam made a trip to India in December for two weeks to learn more about how the industry operates and to work on streamlining the process.

A selection of Honest Wolf's woollen felt luggage bags and satchels. Photo / Bevan Conley.

Hurley said the benefits of wool were endless: it is insulating, biodegradable and fire-resistant.

“It is a renewable fibre - so we shear our sheep twice a year and it keeps growing back - and that’s the story we want to keep encouraging to spread.”

The original idea for Honest Wolf began as a concept for a shopping bag that could replace plastic bags being banned in supermarkets, as it would help to regulate the temperatures of milk or cheese because wool is well-insulated.

She said internationally shearing sheep copped some flack as it was considered to not be cruelty-free, but New Zealanders were better informed about farming practices.

“Farmers relate well to the brand, but to try and sell your premium wool product to people who don’t know the story is more difficult, and so the focus has to be on the quality of the bag.”

Since launching and then opening the Honest Wolf shop in July of last year, the couple have also had two young children.

Along with the impact of the pandemic, it means it’s been a challenging but awesome few years, she said.

In the first year, the couple did not spend any money on marketing, and the business was spread mainly through word of mouth.

Honest Wolf won best-emerging business at the 2023 NZI Rural Women New Zealand Business Awards.

Hurley said breaking into the higher-end market in New Zealand took effort, and even though New Zealand was small there was still a lot of competition.

“If you are willing to take risks and have a go yourself there can be positive outcomes, but there’s a lot of work that goes on in between.”

That means targeting specific areas to grow the business.

Honest Wolf is opening a pop-up shop in Auckland’s Britomart.

There is also a collaboration coming with a renowned New Zealand brand that has been two years in the making.

A topographical map of Papanui Estate on the inside of one of Honest Wolf's woollen bags. Photo/ Bevan Conley.

Hurley hopes to see the business continue to grow with plans to launch further into the international market— currently, 80 per cent of the business is online sales.

“Hopefully it gives confidence for others to make other woollen products, and hopefully in the future, we can use more of our own wool and other people’s as well.”

Inside each bag is a topographical map of the Papanui Estate farm.

“I think that’s what Sam enjoys mostly because there’s a lot of hard things in farmers’ lives and he sees the wool leave the farm, and now it comes back in a product, it’s a full circle.

“I think it gives hope for the wool industry.”

The Honest Wolf store on State Highway 1 in Hunterville. Photo / Bevan Conley.

Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.