Andrew Morrison: Wool Research Organisation Chair on the strong wool sector securing first export deal for wool particles

A significant milestone for the country's wool sector, with an export deal signed. 

Wool Source has had its first commercial export order confirmed. 

The Wool Research Organisation company's signed a deal with a Japanese company, for eight tonnes of Kiwi products. 

Chair Andrew Morrison told Heather du Plessis-Allan they’ve spent about seven years deconstructing strong wool down to a molecular level and finding applications for it. 

He says this is the first shipment going into the personal care market, but they’re also looking into fire retardanty, packaging, and pigments.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've got some good news for wool and of course

(00:02):
we're using taxpayer money to finance bright ideas. Kee wee
wool Company, keep company rather, Wool Source has signed its
first commercial export order for its innovative wool particle products.
The deal is going to supply eight tons to a
Japanese personal care company. Andrew Morrison is the chair of
Wool Research Organization of New Zealand and with us Morning,
Andrew Willing Heather here, I am, I'm well, thanks mate.

(00:23):
What's an innovative wool particle product?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
A wall particle product? As look, we were charged with
the set, I said, for God's sake, we're struggling a
bit in the second. We've got some really good traditional products,
but can you go and find us some new uses,
some new markets and some new customers. So basically we've
been running about a seven year research program deconstructing strong
wall down to that molecular level and then finding applications

(00:46):
for it. So this was our first shipment going into
the personal care market. Particles are a precursor to air
absolute Holy Grails, which is powders in pigments. So yeah,
it's great break and getting their first ship there, and
pretty excited about that.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
So are these guys in Japan sticking it in the
old cosmetics?

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, these are going into personal cares. We've done a
big bunch of research, you know, the the hydrolyzed carrat
and or the shampoo market's massive, the pet shampoo market
is massive. These particles we use, we're also working with companies,
you know, to infuse them into sort of a bier
retardancy capability and the built environment. These particles are precursors

(01:28):
to powders. Powders we use in the packaging coding for
sort of you know those cosmetic packaging or food grade packaging.
And then finally if we and we're well down the
path of cracking that market into the pigments market. You know,
pigment is a massive market forty billion US screen printing,
flexo printing, and digital printing. So we are using these

(01:51):
these deconstructed wall molecular particles to carry their pigments. So
pretty excited about that.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Do you know, Andrew, what this deal is worth for
the Japanese company? I mean, does it does it cover
off the three and a half million that the taxpayers
have put into this?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
This is the startup. I mean the reality is now,
look this is their first shipment, so we've got a
we've got a sheep industry that's struggling out there. That's
why we're doing this work. You know, we have a
lot of talk around land use change trees on sheep farms.
Sheep beef state in New Zealand is about eighty percent
of the New Zealand sort of farming estate. For God's say.

(02:25):
You know, we've got two point six million hectors a dairy,
about eight million hectares of sheep and beep state. We've
got to make that set the profitaboard again. And that's
what we're doing here. So look, look this is a startup.
This is a five tech startup. This is the first
shipment and this only comes out of our pilot plant.
So we're just in negotiatings with partners around building our
first commercial facility build. So you know, this is a

(02:48):
long hall set of game and to be fair, this
is just the first run on the board today.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Good stuff. We'll best of luck with it. Sounds promising.
Andrew Morrison's Chair of All Research Organization of New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
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