Today's Guest: Cathy Montgomery & Gardner Flannigan Rooted To Nature in Elk Rapids, Michigan
Today's Host: Damien Allen
December 2007
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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Rooted to Nature Radio. Today we join Damien Allen of VTalk Radio, Kathy Montgomery of Rooted to Nature, and Gardner Flannigan of SmartWool in a discussion on the advantages of sustainability of SmartWool and Merino wool.
DAMIEN: Welcome to Rooted Radio. My name is Damien Allen, and in the studio today, we have Kathy Montgomery of Rooted to Nature, and we also have on the phone, Gardner Flannigan, Marketing Director for SmartWool Corporation in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Good Morning and welcome to the program folks.
GARDNER: Good morning, Damien.
KATHY: Thanks.
Damien: Well SmartWool is a highly recognized and highly regarded brand. People know and love SmartWool products, and I read that SmartWool was started by two ski instructors who basically wanted a better way to keep warm. As a SmartWool insider, Gardner, what do you think makes the company so successful?
GARDNER: Well, I think it was a number of things. You know, it's the tactile nature of our brand, it's the openness of the brand, it's obviously product that works and performs and keeps people in comfort, no matter of the conditions. But I think it does really go back to that defining moment when the founders of the company really were uncomfortable and really sat down and gave some thought to what was going on. The background on that is, they were already in the hat and sweater knitting business to kind of round out their ski school lifestyle, but one of the founders came off the mountain right here in Steamboat Springs one spring day, and he was just tremendously uncomfortable. It was not a very cold day, but he was cold. And then he took his ski boots off and poured water out of his ski boots, and he really sat there and looked at it for a few minutes and thought, you know, what changed here? Why am I so uncomfortable doing an activity that I love and didn't used to feel this way? And he thought, you know, about what kind of technology he was wearing. He was wearing a lot of synthetic clothes at the time. Synthetic polypropylene base layer and polypropylene socks and that's kind of when the light went off in his head. He remembered growing up and wearing wool socks and then he thought about why wouldn't he be wearing wool anymore, and it was the legacy of wool being itchy and shrinking and then being mass marketed by the synthetic's industry that there was more technology with the synthetic product. And then through his contacts he had in the hat and sweater knitting business, he came across some new stores singing some new technology and went about tackling the problem of, you know, how do you make something that's not itchy and how do you make something that you can, you know, that's easy care? And SmartWool was born. So fundamentally, you know, finding a better way was rooted in a very individual issue and that was they were uncomfortable and they felt that synthetic products were inferior.
DAMIEN: Is SmartWool really different than the wool we grew up with?
GARDNER: It's absolutely different. SmartWool is a Merino wool based and that comes from a Merino sheep and there's lots of different sheep. And all sheep produce fleece and their fleece can be used in a variety of materials from carpets to upolstery, to apparel, what not. All wool shares some very basic characteristics that include better moisture management and temperature regulation, but like I said earlier, kind of our grandparents' wool if it got wet it smelled like a sheep and things like that. What our founders did was they studied some Merino wool and the Merino sheep has a longer fleece, and because it has a longer fleece, a longer fiber, there's less end points when you sheer the sheep and make that into a yarn and those end points are kind of what prick the skin when we were wearing these older types of garments. So that's first and foremost is one reason why SmartWool is less itchy. We've got some proprietary's who like to call smart technology that takes it one step further and makes it a little bit more soft and also eliminates kind of the scales on the side of the fiber that would cause the wool to shrink when you washed it or dried it. And so, you know, that is very, very different from you know the wool that our grandparents and other generations before that grew up with. It's always been known as a performance fiber, but this was, we take a lot of pride in pioneering Merino wool within the outdoor industry and the on-snow industry. I can't think of a major brand right now that doesn't have some time of Merino wool product in their line.
DAMIEN: Kathy, SmartWool is new to Rooted to Nature, it's new product. What kind of response are you getting from your customers?
KATHY: Well, Damien, I have to say that when customers are in the store, I often ask them whether they wear Merino, and I was surprised at how many customers responded, well yes, I wear SmartWool. It was just, you know, their link in their mind between Merino and a good wool product was SmartWool. And so mostly they would say they wool SmartWool socks and then their positive experience with that product or those products makes them more open to the whole range of SmartWool products including base layers which is a new idea for a lot of people to put wool right next to their skin, and the sweaters and all the other really beautiful great colorful garments that SmartWool has come up with.
GARDNER: Kathy, if I might just add, you know it's important to a brand like SmartWool that we have retailers like Rooted to Nature as well. I think we're kind of over greened or greenwashed in our society right now. There's a lot of companies that spend more money marketing that they're green than they are actually are spending on making their processes green. And to a brand like SmartWool, it's important to us, because we've been a sustainable company before we didn't even realize we were trendsetters. You know we've been doing it since the beginning. And so it's important to us as a brand to look to some, you know, good retail partners that in my opinion are pinnacle retailers, maybe not in volume per se, but in really a very targeted premier customer shopping at their stores and educating them on manufacturers and brands that really are doing things a little bit differently. So, back to the how are products being received, I can't answer that myself, but from a brand perspective, it's really important for us to have retailers like Rooted to Nature working with us as partners.
KATHY: Well thanks. We really just look to our own environmental ethics and our own lifestyles. We're outdoor enthusiasts and becoming more and more committed to a green lifestyle, you know, in terms of organic food and just living an active, outdoor, healthy lifestyle. So it seemed like when we were looking for a business all of us in a family could do together, we wanted to emphasis our strengths which we thought were part of which are our environmental values.
DAMIEN: Gardner, people seem to have a lot of common questions when it comes to Merino wool, and I'm wondering if we could address a couple of them? We, being that it's not itchy like grandma and grandpa's wool was, it's a softer, much more refined wool, is it easier to take care of then the old wool was?
GARDNER: Well, yeah, I think it is easier to take care of. Through our smart technology, we're able to produce garments that can be taken care of just like any other garment in a consumer's laundry pile.
DAMIEN: Do they add chemicals to make wool antimicrobial, or is it naturally that way?
GARDNER: It's naturally anti-microbial which is really a tremendous benefit to SmartWool garments. Because of the nature of the fiber, wools a very technical fiber, and kind of my pet peeve is you hear people talk about technical piece and usually what that means is they are talking about some type of piece. You know that's got a lot of marketing dollars from a DuPont or something like that behind it. There is no fiber more technical than wool, and at the same time can be hydrophobic and hydrophilic. In other words it can absorb moisture vapors so it's taking moisture off your skin before you skin is getting is getting wet, and then it can shed liquid moisture. So as a result when we look at the bacteria that is body odor, it's not an environment for this bacteria to grow. There have been a number of university studies that we've benefited from, but really not financed, you know, so it's not us telling the story, it's somebody else, where they've tested synthetic polypropylene garments and SmartWool garments. There's actually a study where they cut the garment in half and sewed it back together to that one half was synthetic and one have was SmartWool, and as a result, the study looked at the garments under microscopes after one week, after three weeks, and after two months, the test subjects had to wear the same garment the entire time. So it was probably a difficult test for the half that was synthetic, because synthetics have to add a harsh chemical or heavy metal overlay to shed or not allow this bacteria to grow, and it's just and intrinsic property of a SmartWool garment of Merino wool fiber. It doesn't allow it. The way that translates into the sustainability messages, you know, people don't have to launder SmartWool garments as often as they do a synthetic piece. I read a very interesting article in the New York Times recently that talked about, you know, there's a lot of attention focused right now on the footprint of manufacturing and what not on the global scale, and the truth is that the end consumer really has a significantly greater impact on footprint and that's from personal habits on how often they launder something, what temperature they're using, and what not, and we look at that study, and we think that that speaks directly to the benefits of SmartWool products in that you can wear a SmartWool top for multiple days and the bacteria you would smell in a synthetic type of garment just does not occur, and we kind of have a tag line of we will be the cleanest garment in your dirty laundry. So, it really is amazing and it's completely natural.
DAMIEN: There's a stream in town here that passes by a friends house, and it constantly smells like somebody's been dumping gray water out of the laundry into it, and being so close to Lake Michigan and the Grand Traverse Bay knowing that every time somebody washes their clothes in this town, that's all heading towards the water table in the water shed and that's not something I want my kids growing up drinking or swimming in.
GARDNER: Absolutely.
KATHY: Right and it's a world wide concern because we live right here in one of the largest reserves of fresh water in the world.
DAMIEN: Gardner, you often hear people talking about layering their clothes to stay warm. Layering is very important. What's SmartWool's take on layering.
GARDNER: Our take on layering, you know, would support any study that's been done that shows that layering is a very effective way of staying warm. Basically layering is trapping pockets of air in areas of insulation and that helps people stay comfortable in a variety of environments. Our true take on this is that the first layer is incredibly important, and so we look at SmartWool garments, not merely for the insulation that they provide, but really for the moisture management. As I mentioned earlier, as the human goes through activity, the natural temperature regulation of the human body involves perspiring and convective cooling. And SmartWool because it takes moisture off the skin in a vapor form which is quite contrary to synthetic types of products is a natural extension of your body's cooling and heating response. So we really look at the layering system as you start with SmartWool next to your skin and you're controlling the moisture which is really dictating how cold or warm your going to be depending on the activity. We also make mid-layers and you know you'll see the brand expanding to outer layers as we continue to grow, and we look at those pieces as the insulation, the true insulation pieces. The very interesting thing with SmartWool garments, our next to skin wear, our sweaters, our mid-layers, is that SmartWool also, or any wool for that matter, is a very versatile fiber. In other words, it will regulate your temperature through a much broader range of temperature compared to a cotton or a synthetic piece, and because of that you don't have to bulk up. Here in the Rocky Mountains I know that we have the benefit of a very dry climate, not very much humidity, but we can go out on a very cold day with two light layers of wool and you'd be very comfortable. I would suggest maybe a heavier piece from SmartWool for Michigan to start out as a base layer, but still the point is you don't have to bundle up. You remember the vision as kids, you know, where they have so many layers on you can't even bend your arms. That would never happen with a SmartWool garment, and we really think that by controlling your moisture at the skin level is really the key to how well the layering system is going to work.
DAMIEN: That's my second favorite scene in A Christmas Story.
GARDNER: Yeah. That's a great scene when he falls down and he can't get up.
DAMIEN: Old memories of when I was a wee lad. Gardner, I understand that the SmartWool company likes to say that making wool is more like borrowing a natural resource rather than exploiting one. Could you expand on that a little bit please.
GARDNER: Sure, Damien. What we mean by that is, you know, we've got a factory that is in New Zealand that is hundreds of thousands of sheep that spend 364 days on the open lands free range eating the grass and frolicking around and then they come in one day and they get a hair cut and then they go back out. You know, I really think it's more than, you know, having a sustainable story. I think leading brands have to show real corporate social responsibility and I'm proud to work for SmartWool because we really do that and from everything like our sourcing where we're buying directly from growers in New Zealand, we're the first brand in the world to offer forward leaning contracts that are guarantying their profitability. Very different from the free market model. And that way it allows our growers to plan for the future and grow their business as well as giving us the assurance that we're going to get the very high grade wool that we need for our brand promise. It also is leadership like taking stances on controversial issues on animal rights. SmartWool is the first brand in the world to mandate the end of the controversial practice called mulesing sheep. That's a animal husbandry practice and that's been eliminated for SmartWool. We also with our sourcing partners in New Zealand have developed the first accreditation system for Merino wool in the world. This is animals social environmental economic different responsibilities that have to be approved by a third party accreditators. We're very, very proud of that. We're proud of our advocacy, our employee advocacy board has given more than $430,000 in the last two years away to non-profits that apply for grants at SmartWool. SmartWool employees get 40 hours of paid time off to serve in the communities in which we live and work. We think that's showing leadership as a brand and as a company when you're allowing people to have the power of time versus money to help make real live change in our communities. It's really the leadership of looking at everything that you do and asking the question, "How can we improve on this?" And that's something that SmartWool does all the time. Whether it's environmentally in our processing and researching how we can minimize our impact there to employee issues and human rights issues and every single step of the way, we're looking for other people to help us in reviewing that and making sure that we're up to speed, so it's a lot more than just borrowing a natural resource, but it does start right there in New Zealand with those great Merino sheep.
DAMIEN: Indeed. Kathy, if you could point out one thing that people might not get a feel for on the website about SmartWool, what would it be?
KATHY: Well, I have to say if it could only be one thing, it would probably be the feel of the product. And that's been a challenge we've been trying to address in the way we take our photos to try to get the idea of soft across. We have no problem in the store. Once people pick up a soft wool garment, they love it. And so, I think, the feel of it getting that across on the website is a big thing.
DAMIEN: Some day there will be a tactile web which will allow you to feel without being there.
KATHY: That's right.
DAMIEN: And on that day, people will never leave their homes again. Well I'd like to thank you both very much for joining us today in the studio. Gardner Flannigan of the SmartWool Corporation out in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Kathy Montgomery to Rooted to Nature. I'm Damien Allen and you have been listening to Rooted to Nature Radio on VTalk Radio. Thank you for listening today, have a great afternoon.
ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to Rooted to Nature Radio. You can visit them on the web at www.rootedtonature.com. Today's guest has been Gardner Flannigan, Marketing Director of SmartWool. You can visit SmartWool on the web at www.SmartWool.com. Thanks for listening.
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