Words Annie Studholme, images by Annie Studholme and supplied
Set up by two South Island farmers on a mission to create a unique clothing line that challenges the world of fast fashion, Hemprino blends the best properties of merino and hemp in an innovative single-blend yarn.
Three years in the making, new fashion label Hemprino is taking flight. The brainchild of farmers Siobhan O’Malley and Paul Ensor, the pair launched their first product, the all-gender charcoal “Pioneer Crew” to a receptive market earlier this year. With initial sales and interest growing from New Zealand and overseas, new styles and colours have followed, with more to come.
"We are making it up as we go along,” says Siobhan. “This is just the beginning. Currently we all have a day job, but we have big plans for this company. We started with a scaled-up business plan to begin with. Our vision was always to make it a big business and we’re very excited about where we are at today. Let’s go all Allbirds.”
But admittedly it’s been a journey to get to this point with many ups and downs along the way. Without each other, the pair doubt they would have got it this far. “When you reflect on the journey, if you had been doing it on your own, we probably would have given up,” says Paul. “There were many times when we wanted to throw in the towel, but because we were working together as team, you are accountable to someone else. So, we just kept chipping away at it. It makes you realise how hard it must be to get a new business off the ground on your own. The key thing was having each other to lean on. Everyone brings their own set of skills and we all feed off each other.”
The pair first met on the Kellogg Rural Leadership course in 2018. Formerly of Mid-Canterbury and now West Coast-based, dairy farmer Siobhan is a former Sharemilker of the Year and founder of charity, Meat the Need. She works full-time as a secondary school teacher, and she and her husband, Christopher, have just purchased their first dairy farm, inland from Hokitika.
Paul, and his wife Prue, farm at Glenaan Station up the Rakaia Gorge, having taken it over from his parents in 2004. They run about 7500 stock units with 6000 fine wool-producing merinos and an Angus beef herd. More than half their annual income comes from wool. Having inherited a fine merino flock, they have been moving toward a higher fertility polled merino flock in recent years, which retains a good fleece but has more lambs.
As part of the Kellogg course, the participants learnt about macro trends and the worldwide switch back to natural fibres, like wool. A separate speaker talked about the merits of hemp as an environmental superfibre with benefits for both the farmer and the consumer. This got Siobhan thinking.
As a dairy farmer, she knew little about the fibre industry, but she wondered if it was possible to combine merino wool with hemp. A quick Google search showed that while there were plenty of businesses in New Zealand using hemp as a food source, oils and cosmetics, no-one else was blending it with wool.
As Paul was the only person she knew in the wool industry, she gave him a call and he immediately jumped on board. “I thought it was an interesting idea,” he says. “It wasn’t something I had heard of. It’s always been a passion of mine to do something to get closer to the consumer and move along the value chain. It was very much a concept at that stage, but it was fun researching and developing the idea.”
Like Siobhan, Paul thought the apparel industry had lost its way a bit in recent years. He questioned why merino wool was blended with synthetics and saw hemp fibre as a great possible alternative. But before they could get too far ahead of themselves, they had to establish whether or not it was even technically possible to blend the two.
“Our idea was to see if it was possible to blend the two fibres first and then come up with what we could make out of the yarn,” says Paul.
Having received some invaluable mentoring from the New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) and an Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust (AGMARDT) grant, after talking to Kiwi manufacturers first, the pair travelled to Shanghai, China, in August 2019 visiting two of the world’s largest wool spinners to learn more about the whole process.
“Going to China was a huge adventure. They didn’t have to talk to us. It was one of the biggest companies in the world and we were essentially nobodies with this new idea, but they were extremely generous with their knowledge and their time,” says Paul.
“We definitely suffered from ‘Imposter Syndrome’ along the way,” laughs Siobhan. But that naivety probably worked to their advantage at times, allowing them to come at it from a totally different angle. “A fresh approach is sometimes an advantage. We had to mix stuff up and give it a go.”
At the start, Paul says they tried hard to keep it under wraps, worried that someone else would beat them to market, but once they actually started talking to people about their idea, it progressed quickly. “We’ve been really lucky with those that have given us their time.”
However, the process of blending merino and hemp proved much more difficult than either of them first thought. It’s very complex and takes some specialist equipment. The major challenge was finding hemp at the right quality. It’s not as consistent as merino wool. Finding that consistency of fibre and consistency of length continues to be challenging, explains Paul.
Eventually, after 18 months, they managed to get a sample yarn out of a company in Northern Italy which they had knitted into a rough prototype jersey in Auckland. It was a start, but it still wasn’t what they envisioned. While they didn’t have much background in fashion between them, through his experience as a grower for NZM, Paul had visited many of the world’s leading manufacturers and suit makers. He had high expectations from the outset.
With Covid-19 raging across the world, especially in Italy, their timing couldn’t have been worse.
Hampered by constant hold-ups, they made the decision to bring the whole production back to New Zealand. “It is significantly more expensive to produce it here, but it was just too difficult with Covid-19,” says Siobhan.
They still had a lot to learn. It wasn’t only about getting the yarn right, but also the knitting. By working together with companies here, they found there was a lot of efficiency to be gained if you could get a yarn that goes through the whole knitting machine.
When they were close to having a workable product, fellow farmer and member of the same Kellogg Rural Leadership course, Harriet Bell, joined the company bringing with her much-needed sales and marketing experience.
Hemprino’s unique yarn is spun in Lower Hutt with the knitting done in Auckland. At 80 per cent merino and 20 per cent hemp, the finished garment combines attributes of both well-known heritage fibres in perfect unison, harnessing the benefits of breathable, bacterial-resistant hemp, and warm, moisture-wicking merino.
“We wanted to have it right before we launched it. We kept iterating until we got something we were happy with. We’re onto our third iteration of the yarn, but what we have got now is really incredible. It’s something we are all very proud of,” says Paul. It is also quite unique in its appearance. “The hemp doesn't take up the dye like the merino does, so it's got what they call a mélange look.”
Hemprino garments are soft on the skin, light to wear and deliciously warm but most importantly, they’ll biodegrade at the end of their life. “Sustainability is something we are really huge on,” says Siobhan. “Every single part of our garment has to be biodegradable. None of us wanted to bring a business into the market that was going to do more harm to the planet. Everything from the label to the embroidery is designed to last a long time but when you're done with it, it's not going to end up in the landfill. There's nothing worse than looking at those giant piles of garments in a landfill that are just never going to biodegrade. Whatever we make, it needs to ultimately be good for the planet.”
But while Hemprino products are wholly made in New Zealand, the hemp fibre used so far has all been sourced out of China.
It’s not what they want long-term, but Siobhan explains that New Zealand’s hemp fibre industry is still in its infancy and to date, the focus has been on producing it for food, seed, and oil. Suitable New Zealand-grown hemp fibre isn’t available yet. In time, the company hopes that will change.
“We firmly believe in hemp as an environmental super fibre. It’s part of our whole paddock to garment philosophy. It’s an incredible plant that is good for the planet and grows well in New Zealand. It’s beneficial in the soil and offers farmers diversity in crop income. Once it’s established it grows like a weed, requiring very little input. It’s our hope that in time every farmer will grow it.”
To get that top quality hemp fibre also required specialist cultivars, different to those grown for oil and seed, adds Paul.
As the Hemprino brand grows, they’re hoping the company’s success will fuel demand for locally grown hemp fibre, as well as specialist contractors to harvest it. “It’s obviously up to us to get out there and sell it so that it becomes a no brainer for farmers to grow it,” says Siobhan.
“The piece that's missing in New Zealand at the moment is actually the processing, so taking the plant that's grown and turning it into a usable fibre for apparel, or for packaging, or insulation, there's a huge range of uses.”
Hemprino has been following agribusiness company Carrfields, which has partnered with Hemp NZ to research and develop the hemp fibre industry under a new company, New Zealand Natural Fibres. Hemprino has been in touch with them the whole way through and as soon as there is a New Zealand-produced apparel fibre, they want to be their first customer. “We are really keen to get that end-on-end New Zealand story. We’re just waiting,” she says.
In the future, they are also keen to use merino wool grown at Glenaan in the Hemprino production. “It's certainly our intent but we've probably used three different types of wool to date, so we've always been about getting the product right and then we'll start using our own farm story as part of the product,” says Paul. “To use our own wool just would have added a level of complexity and probably slowed us down at the start.”
Their plan had always been to launch small to gauge people’s feedback and learn as much as they can, then start expanding the range and colour ways. Since launching the Pioneer Crew in April in charcoal, they have already added a new V-neck jumper, hoodie, beanie and scarf. New colours include navy and kea green, and more will follow.
“The feedback we have received has been amazing,” says Paul. “We have had a lot of repeat sales which has been really cool. It’s the best validation that we can get.”
Hemprino is currently only available through on-line sales and locally in Methven. Next, with the help of New Zealand Trade and Industry they are looking to expand into overseas markets. There is still a question of where to head to next.
“It’s getting to the point where we need to make this baby fly,” says Paul. “We are ambitious. We are all farmers, and we’re about family first. From a succession planning pathway, wouldn’t it be great to see this business grow into a company our children can be part of in the future.”
Head to www.hemprino.co.nz to check out the range and to learn more.