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THE SOUTHDOWN SHEEP SOCIETY
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| Email: info@caltech-crystalyx.co.uk; Website: www.caltech-crystalyx.co.uk | ||||||
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The Natural Fibre Company |
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| Adding Value to your fleece - how we
can help Since the move to Cornwall five years ago, The Natural Fibre Company has built on the foundations laid in Wales to develop more services and scale, enabling sheep breeders to add ever more value to their fleeces. In recent years, average wool prices have fallen slowly but steadily, except for a slight upward blip during 2008. Unlike times past, the wool cheque today rarely covers the cost of shearing and transporting the fleeces to the nearest British Wool Marketing Board depot. So shearing is often seen as a welfare cost rather than a source of good income. Wool is a world commodity and demand and prices are subject to inernational economic influences and strong competition from artificial fibres and cotton. The Wool Board continues to provide strong promotion for British Wool: indeed the quality and survival of the British carpet industry relies on this. But there is not always a ready market for some of the more specialised, coloured, fine or organic wools and for the small amounts of rare breed fleeces. Yet these fleeces are exactly the most interesting to us - and therefore also for you! Indeed, the prices for some special fleeces are now rising. The Natural Fibre Company's commission spinning business has trebled over the last four years, both due to new customers and to the growth of existing ones. In the last year, income nearly doubled. Wool is a high performance natural fibre, with enviable attributes compared to almost all other fibres: it is sustainable and replaceable, it wicks and absorbs moisture, it does not burn and it has a memory due to the crimp in the fibres. All of this means that not only is wool seeing a resurgence through hand- and machine-knitting, but also as the fabric of choice for suiting, sports-wear, fashion, furnishings (particularly bedding) and, of course, carpets and rugs. Due to steady investment, our processes now include sorting, grading, scouring raw fibre, preparing carded fibre and tops, spinning both on the woollen and the worsted systems and yarn and textile piece dyeing. All can be done to either Soil Association accredited organic standards or non organic standards. Apart from wool, we also process mohair and alpaca and blend fibres together, adding silk, flax and hemp when required. We also have partnerships with several weavers to get attractive textiles woven. Our customers range from individual craft workers, making beautiful items by hand from the special fleeces from rare flocks, to much larger enterprises, including wool trade customers seeking our expertise in processing amounts from 20kg up to 800kg plus. We are pretty much alone in this market segment and can work individually with each customer to provide exactly what they need to add value to their fleece. In addition to doing the processing, we work with our customers to ensure the fleece is the best it can be and to design the right products, suitable for each fleece type. We also help you to promote them, as it is essential to be able to sell what has been made - both for the customer who has invested in adding the value and for us to get repeat business! This means that your wool can start to become more valuable. Investing in spinning yarn, making woven goods and then selling them through your local farmer's market, craft fairs, wool, gift and accessory shops, etc., or to holiday visitors, can bring new income, taking advantage of growing consumer awareness and preference for locally sourced goods. Our website, www.thenaturalfibre.co.uk carries case studies of some of our customers and their achievements. |
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Material Copyright © 2002 The Southdown Sheep Society