The celebrity sheep conducted his first media interview with Italian journalists yesterday and showed little patience, stamping his feet until he was fed.
The interviews at Bendigo Station, with Italian fashion and business journalists Laura Asnaghi (La Republica), Maria Luisa Bonacchi (Corriere della Sera, Style and Dove) and Walter Mariotti (Sole24Ore), and photographer Barbara Corsico, then proceeded smoothly as Ms Bonacchi expressed her delight.
"It is not usual in Milan to feed a sheep," she laughed.
The journalists are being co-hosted in New Zealand by Italian textile manufacturer Reda, which owns several South Island high country stations, employs Wanaka's Ann Scanlan as their New Zealand manager and purchases millions of dollars worth of New Zealand merino wool every year for its range of luxury garments.
The New Zealand Merino Co is also co-hosting the week-long media visit.
The 144-year-old Italian company recently signed an agreement with NZ Merino Co to use Zque-branded wool, meaning purchasers can trace their garment back to the farm source and learn about the supplier.
NZ Merino Co's chief executive John Brakenridge said yesterday the Italian media visit should have a "potentially huge" impact on New Zealand's image overseas, and not just for the merino fibre industry.
"They are really influential journalists. And what they are doing is profiling New Zealand to importers and from a tourism point of view, a wine point of view, from every aspect. And the story they are telling is, from my point of view, a really good story," he said.
Shrek's story of being lost, found and then divested of his enormous fleece in front of an international television audience as a charity fundraiser was just one part of the picture.
The journalists' itinerary also included farm visits to Black Forest and Northburn stations; helicopter and boat rides; and nights in luxury lodges, such as Blanket Bay, near Queenstown.
Reda is the first luxury garment manufacturer to join the "traceability" movement, which is already a feature of some "active outdoor" brands of merino clothing.
Traceability allows consumers to learn about the people behind the product, their environmental standards, animal welfare standards and social responsibilities.
Reda chief executive Ercole Botto and owner Francesco Botto Poala said connecting growers and buyers was important to them.
Europeans wanted to know the true story behind the items they were buying and Reda's high environmental certification had set a benchmark in Europe.
Bringing journalists to New Zealand to learn about Zque and meet the farmers would help Europeans understand Reda's products better and complete a missing piece in the jig-saw puzzle, Mr Botto Poalo said.
