Wool chief to step down after 27 years
New Zealand Merino, the sales and marketing organisation that promotes the fibre in the international marketplace on behalf of the country’s wool growers, has announced that its chief executive, John Brakenridge, is to step down from the role.
Mr Brakenridge has led the organisation since it was set up in 1996. He said on announcing his departure that there had been a transformation in the fine wool industry during his almost three decades in charge.
He said he felt the most important change was that wool growers were now selling the fibre under contract to buyers rather than selling it at auction, moving it away from being a commodity.
He pointed to outdoor apparel brand Icebreaker as a good example. Founded in New Zealand in 1995, Icebreaker was acquired by VF Corporation in 2018. However, its contracts for acquiring merino wool from farmers in the land of its birth run for 10 years now, Mr Brakenridge said.
The major benefits of this change, he explained, were that prices have lifted and farmers now have greater certainty.
Image: Icebreaker.
