Wool gathering pays off with high demand for natural sheepskin products

One of the country's last remaining woolskin tanneries says there has been a resurgence in demand for sheepskin, as people begin to turn away from plastic alternatives and "vegan" leather options.

Founded in 1969, Classic Sheepskins in Napier is the last of its kind to operate entirely locally, with other tanneries either exporting their skins for processing overseas where labour is cheap, or working only with cowskin.

The tannery's general manager, Kieran Callaghan, said between homewares, baby products, car seat covers and woolly slippers, there was still a good market for their products - and demand was only growing.

"I think we are in a phase where people are starting to come back to natural products," he said, with the growing desire for product longevity and concerns about the effect of plastic on the planet likely contributing.

At Classic, the whole tanning process is done within a one-kilometre radius across a series of buildings in Napier's industrial area, Pandora.

Owned by a group called the Hawke's Bay Meat Company, they aimed for 60,000 skins a year, Callaghan said, and were aiming to increase that to 100,000 by next year.

The skins were a by-product of the meat industry.

"If they don't come here, or are not made into leather, they're destined for compost or landfill."

The process begins by salting the skins to remove moisture and kill bacteria. Then the skins are pickled for a day or so, and then treated with a tanning agent to lock the wool fibres into the skin.

Callaghan said the tanning agent was, at one point, quite unique to New Zealand, but now with the proliferation of Kiwi tanners overseas, many places used something similar.

"There's not been whole lot of major R and D (research and development) in terms of these sort of things in the tanning world because it's sort of just shipped off to cheaper labour places."

Tanning was still a rare craft, he said.

"The number of tanners in the world would be quite a small number, especially wool tanners."

But many ended up in big markets like China, with demand for their skills.

After about three days in the tanning baths, the skins are wrung out and pegged onto drying racks.

"The niggly thing with drying sheepskins, and a big reason why there's not a lot of it done in developed countries, is every sheepskin has to be individually toggled out to dry to stop them from shrinking, and that takes about 24 toggles per skin."

Then the skins are graded, piece by piece, by hand, before the finishing processes of softening the leather and brushing out the wool.

The finishing machines were old, but still going strong.

"There's not a whole lot of people making tannery equipment," Callaghan said.

"France, Germany, Spain are where it historically came out of. It's big heavy kit and if you look after it, it's just the best on the market."

Finally, the sheepskins arrive in the manufacturing area. Shortly before Christmas, the team had put together a 46-pelt rug, like a game of Tetris where the colour and wool length of one sheepskin had to blend into the next.

In its early days, the company's main product was sheepskin tiles for insulation, but when Batts came along, these fell out of fashion, to be replaced by a demand for carseat covers.

"Back in the day, this tannery had a pattern for each car model on the road. Car seat covers are still a strong-selling pattern for us."

But right now, the homewares market was the biggest area of growth, Callaghan said.

"In architecture you see a lot of wood, polished concrete, that sort of thing, so sheepskin helps soften that and still has a luxury element to it."

Demand for baby products was strong too, with honey the most popular colour.

The split between the domestic versus the overseas market was about 50-50, he said, but more volume ended up going offshore, with goods sold to the tourist market eventually moving overseas.

Interest in sheepskin products varied across the international market.

"Some countries don't get it at all, some countries only get it in certain uses," Callaghan said.

At home, it was important to keep innovating. Lately they had been working on ways to become more sustainable, including a composting scheme.

Trials were underway, including one at Te Mata Peak, with sheepskin trimmings and offcuts put under newly planted trees.

Made up of collagen, creatine and water, sheepskin held a third of its weight in moisture, giving new plants slow release moisture underneath.

Callaghan said smallscale testing on capsicum and tomato plants had produced good results.

Chief executive of advocacy and resource group Wool Impact Andy Caughey said the textiles market had likely been impacted by the pandemic, with people spending a lot of time at home to consider the comfort level of their surroundings.

Plastics "just don't have the same tactile appeal as natural fibres do", he said.

He said a preferences for fibres which were easier to safely dispose of at the end of their life made natural options far more appealing.

And it was not just New Zealand.

"We see this resurgence as part of a global change," he said. "Increasingly people are aware of the impact of microplastics on the environment."

And with innovation meaning new products and uses emerging all the time, the wool industry was slowly making a comeback.