Saibosi partners with Wools of New Zealand to showcase farm-to-floor wool rugs in China
Chinese textile company Saibosi has partnered with Wools of New Zealand to put the 'farm to floor' story of New Zealand wool rugs on screen for its customers.
That’s the view of Hawke’s Bay wool broker Philippa Wright who has called it quits after a stellar 48-year career in the NZ wool industry, most of which has involved running her own wool broking business in Waipukurau.
She says she first noticed the start of productive farmland moving away from sheep when the big move to dairy conversions began and since then the problem has increased with the planting of trees.
“We have lost an enormous amount of sheep country and at the same time the price of wool hasn’t matched what a grower needs to make a profit, so therefore they have made other choices for their land,” she says.
Wright says another factor which has led to the decline of the wool industry was the decision by farmers in 2003 to disestablish of the then Wool Board whose task it was to promote our wool.
She says while there were problems with the way the Wool Board was being run at the time, the vote to kill it off completely was wrong.
“I am still absolutely gobsmacked that they threw it all out. They should have said we still need wool fibre to be represented at a high level and to promote it in the northern hemisphere. Why couldn’t they have just changed it to suit that requirement rather than get rid of it?” she says.
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Wright says, to make matters worse, up until comparatively recently with the advent of the campaign for wool, farmers did nothing to support or advocate for wool.
The result she says is that wool has slipped off the radar of New Zealanders. Wright says wool used to be the major export for the country and NZ was one of the biggest users of the fibre, but this is no longer the case.
“We have missed educating at least two generations of our people about the value and great properties of wool and we have a lot of catching up to do,” she says.
Wright says the good news is that over the last five or so years, the media and people in general have become much more aware of wool due to the efforts of the campaign of wool.
What we need to do now, she says, is to create an enthusiasm for wool in our own country and make people aware of the excellent properties of the wool and the myriad of uses that it can be put to.
The Wright Journey
Philippa Wright began her career in the wool industry immediately after leaving school and spent the next two years working as a shed hand before going to Massey University to get a diploma in wool handing.
After that she did some wool classing on Merino clips before moving to the North Island.
“I’m not from a farm and I can’t say that early on I had a fascination with wool. But my father was a wool buyer and classer, so I saw what the industry was about from a very early age,” she says.
Wright ended up in Hawke’s Bay and stayed there for 15 years working for a variety of companies such as William and Kettle, Dalgety’s and Wrightson’s – all of whom eventually merged.
“It was a tough working in the brokering industry and was quite difficult for a female trying to progress. They gave me every job from bottom to top, so I got good all-round experience and, in the end, this created a resilience and toughness that has held me in excellent stead in my own business,” she says.
After 15 years in Hawke’s Bay, Philippa had the opportunity to buy into a wool broking business in Waipukurau. She initially bought a 50% shareholding in the company and four years later took over the business outright and formed her company, Wright Wool, which she has run for 28 years.
During her career in the wool industry, Wright has seen many changes. She says two things stand out: firstly, the improved testing of wool and also the mechanisation of the industry.
She says when she started, testing was just beginning and it was mainly for yield. But now she says they test for everything – colour, the micron, the bulk the length and strength.
“This is one of the single biggest innovations because it’s taken away that subjective assessment, which means that down the line there is proof that wool is a more reliable fibre to process and create new uses for,” she says.
The other big change has been the advent of technology and machinery. Philippa Wright says when she started in the industry, there was only one forklift in the entire wool store of the company she was working for and, of course, lots of people. She says the introduction of mechanisation and new technology made a massive difference.
Now that she has sold her business, Wright says she just plans to take a break and see what happens and perhaps reflect on the sector that has been her life. She believes that while a lot of innovation is taking place in the sector, nothing really new is happening – just doing what we always did better. She says the challenge for the future is to create new products that the consumer will genuinely want and be prepared to pay for.
