Hunterville’s Honest Wolf woollen brand wins first prize at Rural Women Business Awards

Sophie Hurley started Honest Wolf in response to the dropping value of wool. Photo / Bevan Conley

A Hunterville brand’s innovative use of wool has earned it the highest honour at the Rural Women Business Awards.

Sophie and Sam Hurley’s business Honest Wolf transforms high-quality wool from their Papanui Estate farm into a luxury range of bags.

Rural Women New Zealand national president Gill Naylor says this is the first time the supreme award has been given to the winner of the emerging business category.

“Honest Wolf is an excellent example of the innovation and entrepreneurism of rural enterprises and their responsiveness to changing times.

“This year we have seen the businesses that were created or were forced to pivot and evolve during the 2020 lockdown period really coming into their own now.”

Sophie Hurley said she was “pretty shocked” to win.

“There was such an amazing group of women that were amongst the finalists and I didn’t picture ourselves to be supreme winner, so my speech was ridiculously unprepared.”

Hurley said it was an awesome milestone for the business after a hard slog.

“It’s not all what it seems with the award and what’s on social media, it’s a lot of taking the business home, and with family life and farm life it’s an absolute juggle, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Honest Wolf was created by Sophie Hurley in response to the dropping value of wool.

The business has enabled the couple to obtain a higher farmgate price for their wool and to show off its qualities as a premium product.

Wool is insulating, biodegradable and fire-resistant, which are qualities the Hurleys first thought would be perfect in a shopping bag when they heard plastic bags were being removed from supermarkets.

Since then the brand has broken into the designer market with woollen bags and accessories.

Hurley said they were looking to get their brand into other locations around the country and internationally at some stage.

Honest Wolf recently opened a pop-up store in Auckland’s Britomart from November 8-29, and its main store is on State Highway 1 in Hunterville.

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