NZM chair says covid-19 threat is ‘permanent’ until vaccine arrives
The outgoing chair of the New Zealand Merino Company (NZM), Ruth Richardson, has said that she is confident wool growers and their market partners can weather the storm caused by covid-19, but that the threat to businesses of the pandemic will remain, at least for now.
She made these comments in her chairman’s report for the NZM annual report for 2020. The new chair of NZM, which works to promote New Zealand merino wool and to connect wool growers across the country with market partners in all parts of the world, will be Kathryn Mitchell.
In her remarks, Ms Richardson said she was confident of recovering, even though the company was still coming to grips with the meaning of covid-19, which she described as “a permanent threat until such time as a vaccine hits the shelves”.
She said NZM’s triple focus on people, the planet and profit would help it overcome the challenges the pandemic has presented, for example through its ZQ certification programme, which the company describes as “wool done right” because it promotes a standard that stands for a better quality of life for the animals, for the planet and for people. Ms Richardson insisted ZQ can be an important part of “a ground-breaking fibre play that has the prospect of disrupting the bad-for-the-planet plastics industry with wonderful wool”.
She named VF Corporation and Allbirds in a list of companies that are lending strong support to the New Zealand merino wool sector.
