Elders Primary's hopes of building the value of New Zealand carpet wool in North America were given an extra blessing when executives of CCA Global visited New Zealand last week.
At a meeting with growers and other industry representatives in Napier last Friday, local iwi representatives presented the four visitors with
pounamu taonga, symbolising partnership and their roles, and the faith in the partnership which aims to improve the value of carpet wool in North America through the Elders brand Just Shorn.
While the partnership has been growing during the past two years, it was the first visit to New Zealand by CCA Global chief executive Rick Bennet, who was travelling with flooring and carpet specialist and CCA Global chief product officer Charlie Dicks, the president of subsidiary International Design Guild, Krista Eliason, and company public relations vice-president Terry Daniels.
During the previous week, IDG rolled out Just Shorn material through stores across the United States, including a campaign allowing consumers to follow the path of the wool, from the farm to the laying of the carpet.
A co-operative growing from a dream to meet the needs of small retailers in the era of big-barn chain operations, CCA Global has more than 2000 members, mainly in retailing, through the US and Canada, and boasts sales of almost US$9billion.
The company is leading the retail battle of wool versus synthetics by highlighting the properties of wool in a market where young people have known little other than the synthetic version, to a point where just 2 per cent of carpet sold in the US is the woollen product.
Asked whether New Zealand, with its depleted sheep numbers, could handle the demands of a dramatic recovery, being forecast in some quarters of the cleaner and greener health-conscious world, Mr Bennet said the company was comfortable with the current situation. Just doubling the 2 per cent would account for the current New Zealand strongwool clip.
Told of modern methods of marketing, including Facebook and Twitter, the visitors asked how many of the audience were "on" the two tools of "social communication". The response was a titter and a rolling of eyes.
