WOOL broker Landmark will supply quality-assured and audited clips to one of the world’s biggest worsted fabric producers through a new "Wool4" marketing program.
Landmark said this week it had recently formed an alliance with Yünsa, a Turkey-based company, ranked in the top five producers of worsted fabric in the world.
Landmark’s national wool manager Kym Gunn said end-user demand for wool production traceability was growing and producers supplying the Wool4 program would have to clear audited ethical, environmental and sustainability hurdles.
“In the last few years end-markets have been requiring and asking for supply chain partners to work together to be able to deliver information on production practices, on environmental and animal welfare standards,” he said.
Wool4 would supply wool from growers who had ceased mulesing, were mulesing with pain relief or from sheep who had not been mulesed, and would be supported by AWEX national wool declarations.
Landmark said Wool4 was a system for commercial wool growers, built on four pillars: animals, people, environment and future sustainability. It linked participating growers to consumers, promoting the highest standards of on-farm production and passing that information along the supply chain, the broker said.
Mr Gunn said Yünsa, as one of the largest fabric makers in Europe, was a very important choke point in the supply chain.
“It (Wool4) enables us to pull through this wool from our growers and clients in Australia to meet the requirements of these end-users.”
Mr Gunn said the alliance with Yünsa was a great opportunity to promote Australia’s wool to end-users and supply chain partners. Yünsa handled wool from 16-26 micron.
“That’s why it is so important to have someone like Yünsa on board, which has clients such as some of the leading fashion houses in the world.”
He would not discuss the probability of premiums for Wool4-qualifying wool, but said Landmark for the past 150 years has had a commitment to clients “to negotiate the highest possible price”.
Landmark said in the past 12 months it had met with numerous international end users and their stakeholders to learn about their requirements, while promoting the needs of Australian wool producers.
It had already supplied wool to Yünsa and been working closely with the company over the past nine months to ensure all stakeholders’ requirements were met throughout the value chain.
Spokesperson for Yünsa, Melik ERDiNÇ, believed the relationship with Landmark would be ongoing as demand for this type of fabric continued to grow and open transparent supply chains with information sharing about production became common practice.
“We are now working with Yünsa to negotiate more orders from retailers,” Mr Gunn said.
Yünsa is a subsidiary of Haci Omer Sabanci Holding AS, a holding company of the Sabanci Group, an industrial and financial conglomerate based in Turkey.
