Dave Burridge was a young boy when his father died at 36.
From an early age he made a commitment to follow in his footsteps. The day after he left school, he hopped on a bus to start work in Blenheim for the New Zealand Wool Marketing Co-op.
‘‘My father was working for them when he died in 1976. I used to go up there for the school holidays when my parents had separated so I had been associated with them as a child. I always wanted to be like my father. I idolised him and he was a wool man and I wanted to be a wool man and have never regretted it ever since.’’
His grandparents had been Central Otago farmers, and his first choice had been to become a farmer.
After spending a year with the marketing company, he moved on to work on a few farms in the Nelson Lakes area.
‘‘But it came to me at that time with high interest rates that I was never going to have my own farm and I missed being associated with working for wool. So I got a job for Pyne Gould Guinness in the bin room at the very bottom.’’
He says the family firm was always good to him and he’s tried to repay that loyalty.
The wool industry then was a hangover from a different period. His bosses were World War 2 captains and lieutenants, never seen without a shirt and tie.
‘‘It’s been a fascinating journey seeing the changes. The flow of wool was largely a summertime feature where 70% of the wool was shorn from mid-November to February. In our 120-year-old wool store in Moorhouse Avenue we would have a staff of 120 men working in that peak period. It was a different era.’’
That was when sheep numbers were up to 70million and each year 200,000 bales of wool would pass through the store. Now there’s 23million sheep, with the wool clip a shadow of its former self.
Once the wool was classed, his job was to put it in the skip so it could be weighed on the scales. It was a perfect grounding for learning all the wool types from specialist wool classers on the second floor.
Six months later he was shoulder-tapped to go to study for a wool certificate at Lincoln University and had his own classing run, before returning to do his Diploma of Wool Technology, funded for a year by the firm.
Keen to see the world, he left to go on his OE for 18 months, working as a waiter in a Scottish castle, meeting his wife in Canada, travelling through India and climbing in Nepal. The climbing bug continued until a close call made him ease into adventure racing and then biking and alpine running in his spare time.
A job was waiting for him on his return, during a challenging period when drought combined with political and economic upheaval.
Mr Burridge says it was hard to watch farmers forced off the land and the spillover from the industry being de-regulated when the Wool Board was disestablished.
PGGW’s current auction-warehouse became the main storage for 40,000 bales that were bought by the Wool Board through a minimum price support scheme.
The Russians had exited the wool industry — never to return — and it took close to 10 years to on-sell the mountain of crossbred fleece.
Equally hard was to see the synthetic industry stealing the march on strong wool.
The Wool Board leaned towards industry-good marketing and promotions and there was an attitude that wool would always be king.
But its popularity was overestimated, as technology snuck up on them to develop viscoses, polyesters, nylons and acrylics.
The rise of synthetic carpets and polarfleece with clever marketing, which played on its warmth and distanced it from its plastic make-up, found a market share that wool never recovered from.
Where once everyone had a woollen carpet, now wool commands less than 10% of the market.
Today, a top crossbred offering can make a clean price of $3/kg or $2.50/kg greasy and average wools are lower. That’s brought on talk again of low returns only just covering the cost of shearing for full wool sheep.
In stark contrast, fine wool is going gangbusters.
Last month, 13.2 micron wool from Central Otago was bought by Australian Merino Exports for a clean price of $81 a kilogram. (14.49) and 13.7 for $77/kg.
Burridge says these prices usually only come once in a generation.
‘‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my 40 years in the business — we are seeing literally a game of two halves. It’s extraordinary we are seeing a major resurgence in luxury ultrafine wool fibres in the very fine end of the merino market.’’
He’s grateful that PGGW returned to fine wool in 2013 after an eight-year stand-down when this side of the business was sold during the merger between PGG and Wrightson.
Merino farmers are back supporting the company and the Christchurch auction again, he says.
Several factors are at play with fine wool’s storming run. The Australian drought brought on a shortage, and their national fibre diameter has since reduced to leave a shortfall in sub-16 micron and sub-18 micron wools.
A fashion change in Europe towards superfine woven suits and other knitwear products has also brought out the buyers.
Much of the demand is coming from a younger generation — and those on higher incomes — who want to link with more natural fibres, and look sharp when they go out as the world recovers from Covid-19.
Which is good news for merino farmers. Some of them are dusting off bales stored for years in wool sheds, after waiting just for this very moment.
Burridge says medium strong-combing merino types between 18-23 microns are still experiencing strong demand, but not to the same extent of the sub-18 microns which are reaching record levels.
‘‘We are starting to see what we saw 30 years ago where there are significant price differences even within points of a micron. We are talking 40c, 50c to 60c a kilogram difference just between points of a micron once you drop under 17 microns.’’
Sandwiched in between are mid-micron types, which are feeling the pinch of Covid-19 after being prized for Chinese manufacturing into socks, worsted products and knitwear.
Burridge said it’s only a matter of time before they come back because the plants are geared up for this production.
He’s also convinced that strong wool will rise above petroleum-based products.
Carpet companies can follow the likes of Icebreaker and others who evoke imagery of naturalness and the high country to connect to buyers who want to feel good about what they buy. There are signs of progress with Bremworth, formerly Cavalier, making a big statement by dropping synthetic carpets from its range, he says.
‘‘My view is that wool’s going to have it’s day in the sun again because of all the awareness from an informed younger generation about plastics and microplastics in the oceans, and the flammability around synthetic fibres. I love wool’s provenance story: it only takes sunlight, water and grass to grow and it’s so renewable — you harvest the wool on the sheep’s back and it starts growing 12 months of fleece again.’’
He says it beggars belief fine wool can be at unprecedented levels when strong wool is leaking so badly as they’re both natural woollen fibres.
