Derelee Potroz-Smith, right, and Alana Cheape from Woolchemy Photo: Supplied
The co-founder of a company transforming sheep wool into period products, nappies and incontinence pads wants to "bring real value back to wool".
Wellington start-up Woolchemy has taken top honours at Idea 2025, a global awards for the non-woven and engineered fabrics industry.
Woolchemy won the gong for its groundbreaking product neweFibre - which it says is the world's first hygiene-grade wool - and capable of replacing petroleum-based plastics in disposable hygiene products.
Derelee Potroz-Smith - an electrical engineer whose family has bred sheep for six generations - said she was proud that this innovation has been developed in Aotearoa.
"This is the world's first hygiene-grade purified wool fibre, we're adding value to the wool fibre and it's a higher cost that we're exporting. People wanting hygiene-grade wool fibre will have to come to New Zealand to get it. We're incredibly proud of that - and it means more money, back to farm."
She said the award not only gave Woolchemy a lot of recognition in the hygiene sector, but in the non-woven sector.
"It's a recognition that's on a global level. To win this award you have to convince a very technical panel of judges that your product actually works and we went up against some pretty big companies... It puts both wool, and our work, our many years of R&D into this product, in the spotlight."
Woolchemy products. Photo: Supplied
Potroz-Smith founded Woolchemy with her mother, north Taranaki sheep farmer Angela Potroz, about 10 years ago.
Wool had been used in hygiene products in the past, she said.
"So we weren't necessarily doing anything particularly new. What we were doing was trying to figure out how to make wool absorbent so we could get it into the inside of the products and use more fibre, but also use the benefits that wool brings to a healthcare product that would make it better for people."
She said the bio-materials company was challenging a $126 billion industry dominated by synthetic materials.
Woolchemy's patented materials used natural wool fibres engineered into high-performance structures that were skin-compatible, scalable, and - critically - renewable and biodegradable.
New Zealand-sourced strong wool was scoured in Hawkes Bay or Taranaki and then shipped to Europe, where it was purified and processed at up to 200 metres per minute. The resulting product was then used as a component in hygiene products.
"There are two billion single-use hygiene products used every day and 93 percent of them are plastic. This award recognises a pivotal shift toward sustainable alternatives, and it's being driven from Aotearoa."
Woolchemy products. Photo: Supplied
Woolchemy's product was being trialled by two hygiene manufacturers, one in the US and another that covers Australasia as well as the States, who are looking to launch early next year.
It was also in talks with companies in China and Europe, she added.
Potroz-Smith says she wanted Woolchemy to become "the Fonterra of the wool sector" - a large company exporting the majority of strong wool overseas and getting farmers a strong return.
The name Woolchemy came from a friend, who suggested that alchemy was about taking something ordinary and turning it into gold.
"Our original tagline was about turning wool into gold. But wool already has amazing superpowers - it's just that no one has really taken advantage of it."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
