PR - New Vision For New Zealand Strong Wool Industry (p254-264)

The NZ wool industry has been in significant strife for a number of years due to long-term competition from synthetic fibres, the lack of cohesion amongst key players along the wool industry supply chain and the declining returns to sheep farmers. This paper aims to describe and discuss the current situation and recent marketing and branding initiatives in the New Zealand (NZ) strong wool industry. Several face-to-face and telephone interviews with key players of the NZ wool sector were undertaken in this study. The new NZ wool marketing and branding initiatives are still in their initial stage of development and their potential is debatable. There is some criticism that these marketing programmes have a modest contribution to solve the endemic fragmentation problem of the wool sector. An industry wide initiative is still required to address these challenges. How the competing marketing initiatives will evolve and who will reap the benefits is still to be determined.

Keywords: New Zealand wool, cooperatives, wool supply chain, wool marketing initiatives