Testing is under way by the Merino Softwear Company, which was founded by Brent Gregory and Suzanne Wilson who come from textile and clothing industry backgrounds, to create high-value products from wool.
They have taken a back-to-front approach; rather than dictating what they thought the market wanted, they have instead been trying to find new markets for wool and then engineering the fibre to deliver the attributes required.
"We started this business to add value to wool here in New Zealand. We believed in the wool industry but we believed it could be done a wee bit differently. We are selling a solution that happens to be wool," Mr Gregory said.
He contacted Winstone Wallboards technical and development manager John Jamison with an alternative for providing structural integrity to the company’s plasterboard product.
Winstone Wallboards — part of the building products division of Fletcher Building — is New Zealand’s only manufacturer and largest marketer of gypsum plasterboard, manufacturing about 30 million sq metres a year.
He was always open to looking at different approaches and opportunities, and wool had been talked about in the past but it had not gone anywhere, and he was happy to explore its potential use, Mr Jamison said. He saw it as an opportunity to use a more natural material in a widely used building product.
Winstone has two manufacturing plants — in Tauranga and Christchurch — and he said the Christchurch factory was ideal for trialling products as it was smaller and new products and prototypes could be tested more easily there.
Mr Gregory visited the Christchurch plant and talked to the engineering team to gain an understanding of what was required.
"Our team formulated some plaster and wool fibre and made some samples," he said.
Mr Jamison said he also put Mr Gregory in touch with one of his international contacts, a supplier working in the building products industry, and he had dispatched wool to gauge feedback.
Mr Gregory said, while it was early days, the potential of the product was on a scale that could be very good for the wool industry. As well as a trickle-down effect from wool growers, it was also about being of value to the world given it was a natural product.
He was delighted to be able to approach one of New Zealand’s largest companies, put a case forward and be listened to. And it was not just the domestic market, there was potential to take that technology offshore and also use it in other building products.
Ms Wilson, who grew up on a sheep farm, said the use of wool in plasterboard "ticks a lot of environmental boxes, which is the way the world is moving".
ANZ’s latest Agri-Focus report said strong-wool prices were slightly better than they had been in recent years but still had some way to go before they positively impacted farm profits. The cost of harvesting wool had significantly increased, so prices needed to rise considerably to cover costs.
