WELLINGTON: Glerups, the Danish woollen slipper maker, has contracted New Zealand wool growers to provide the majority of its fibre for the next two years, in a deal worth about $1.5 million.
The family owned slipper business, based in the northern Danish town of Aars, will buy 90 tonnes of coarse wool from state owned farmer Landcorp and 90 tonnes of finer mid-micron wool sourced through the New Zealand Merino Company as part of the deal. The wool will be scoured in New Zealand and exported to the company’s Romanian factory by Paris based Chargeurs.
The deal comes after Landcorp, New Zealand’s largest corporate farmer, signed a three year contract in December for NZ Merino to manage its wool clip to better tailor its production to customers and improve returns. Glerups, which was started as a hobby business on the family farm by Nanny Glerup in 1993 using wool from her Gotland sheep, now exports about 150,000 pairs of the $189 slippers to 20 countries each year, and is expanding at a 20 percent annual pace.
“I would certainly hope that it can be extended,” said NZ Merino marketing manager Gretchen Foster. “We will be supporting Glerups as much as we can over the next two years to ensure that they really do see value in a partnership. Anything we can do to enhance what they are doing in the market we will be doing with the intent that this is a long term partnership like a lot of our other partnerships have been.
“They are growing so hopefully if we can prove our merit the volume will increase as well.”
NZ Merino aims to boost sheep grower returns from merino wool through supply agreements with companies such as New Zealand outdoor clothing brand Icebreaker. The partnership with Landcorp, which produces New Zealand’s largest wool clip of about 2,700 tonnes a year, is its first foray into coarse wool.
Glerups will continue to use a small amount of wool from Gotland sheep, which originate from the Swedish island of the same name.
