Synthetic US Carpet Branded “The Wool Range”

100 Percent Synthetic US Carpet Branded “The Wool Range”

An American carpet maker, which premiered a new “wool range” made from 100 percent synthetic fibres, was this week forced into an embarrassing name change.
The International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO) stepped in after Shaw Contract Group premiered its “wool range” at a major US flooring show. It is still using wool as a benchmark with the range renamed “couture inspired by wool”. Shaw’s press release said the name change “was to avoid confusion in the marketplace”.

The chairman of the National Council of Wool Interests in New Zealand, Stephen Fookes, said the highly active synthetic carpet sector was effectively destroying the New Zealand woolgrowers’ years of investment with this sort of market place subterfuge.

Synthetics had developed a highly effective lobby group in the US and Europe and had written synthetic carpets into contract specifications that excluded or disadvantaged New Zealand woolgrowers, with a direct result on price stability and demand.

“Over fifty percent of interior textile purchasing decisions in the western world are made as a result of contract specifications, standards, by-laws, consumer and regulatory organisations recommendations and political influences.

“Since the decision by woolgrowers to no longer support the marketing of New Zealand wool almost 10 years ago, synthetic carpet makers have pretty much had it all their own way,” Mr Fookes said. “But the wool growing countries including New Zealand, Argentina, Uruguay, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom were joining forces through the IWTO to fight back and reposition wool to its rightful position,” he said.

New Zealand, through the National Council of New Zealand Wool Interests and Meat and Wool NZ, has jointly contributed to a small, but exciting lobby project to change the status of wool in the interior textiles market. Since the National Council comprises membership of each industry sector, from woolgrower to early processors, there is a strong force to support the lobby group.

IWTO Interior Textiles Committee chairman, Mr Olivier Segard, will be in New Zealand next month to update the New Zealand wool industry on the ways that wool was fighting back with an intensive lobbying programme in health, welfare, environmental and sustainability organisations, accessing members of parliament, creating a “one sector voice”, working on building and mobility flammability codes, sharing life cycle analysis methodology and ensuring standards reflect wools advantageous position.

“In the six months since the project started there’s been significant progress in repositioning wool in the European and USA interior textile markets” he says.

“It highlights the positive results that can be achieved by a unified wool industry creating demand for minimal cost” Fookes said.

ends

© Scoop Media