Today's Guest: Cathy Montgomery & Deb Boswell Rooted To Nature in Elk Rapids, Michigan
Today's Host: Cathy Montgomery
January 2008
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Rooted To Nature Expert PageANNOUNCER: Good afternoon and welcome to Rooted to Nature Radio. Today Rooted to Nature Radio is very honored to welcome Deb Boswell, the American Marketing Manager for Icebreaker of the global company founded in New Zealand that makes the most amazing Merino clothing. We also have Cathy Montgomery of Rooted to Nature Radio store and Rootedtonature.com which provides natural clothing for a sustainable future. Today we'll focus on the reasons why an environmental company like Rooted to Nature is so excited about Icebreaker clothing. We now join Cathy Montgomery and Deb Boswell via the phone in the studio.
CATHY: This is Cathy, founder of Rooted to Nature and RootedtoNature.com and we are an environmentally focused store that sells natural clothing and accessories. I'd like to start off by saying that what caught our attention about Icebreaker, first of all was the idea of natural. You use natural as opposed to synthetic fabrics, but in the way that other manufacturers might use synthetics. In other words, performance wear that we have gotten used to seeing being made out of petroleum based products all of a sudden is made out of the most amazing soft, light Merino and the design of the clothing is really functional, yet fashionable. You have such an amazing marriage of tradition and future and so we just fell in love with Icebreaker products. So, Deb, I thought maybe we could start by just focusing on that fiber that made the icebreaker brand and out of which you make the clothing and that's the Merino. I know that Icebreaker likes to say that not all Merino is created equal and could you maybe tell us what makes Icebreaker Merino special.
DEB: Yes, ok Cathy. I guess starting at the beginning with wool itself. People associate wool often with being an itchy fiber and what differentiates Merino wool from what we call lowland sheep wool is just really the thickness so what's different about Merino wool is it's extremely fine and the friction on the fiber isn't actually able to be picked up by the human skin or you could use the analogy of scales so our human skin can't feel the scales on a Merino fiber, but they can on a normal piece of wool. The reason that Merino is different from normal wool is because of its fineness and because of the smaller size of scales so that leads onto how Icebreaker fiber is different as well. Just like any wine, you can have a great bottle of Merlot or a Cabernet that's been manufactured from the best grapes and you can have a pretty scary as we call it Chateau cardboard you can buy for $3 and the grapes used for that are really quite different. That analogy works really well when trying to explain the difference of Icebreaker Merino to other Merino as well. And what we do is we have certain criteria that our farmers need to grow or the sheep need to produce in order for the quality that we need it to be. And that's typically relying on the length of fiber and the strength of that fiber. So that's really what sets Icebreaker apart is the particular attention we pay to the length and strength of fiber, but can really vary throughout Merino production.
CATHY: I'm detecting that you are a Kiwi, yes? You're from New Zealand?
DEB: Hopefully your listeners can understand today.
CATHY: And the Merino that Icebreaker makes is from sheep that are specifically in New Zealand. Is that right?
DEB: Yes, that's absolutely right. We actually, we got a little bit further than that. All of our Merino wool comes from New Zealand, but we actually have exclusive contracts with all of our growers so what that means is we're able to provide farmers and their families security over the next ten years and the price that we'll pay for the Merino wool in order for them to grow it to the specifications that we require. So it's a fantastic partnership that we have with our growers. We only source our Merino from those growers and in return they give us the exact fiber construction that we're after and it comes back to that length and strength I was talking about before. It's a very special partnership not only with New Zealand Merino, but with particular farmers of Merino sheep in New Zealand.
CATHY: And what do you think it is about New Zealand that makes the wool that comes from there so particularly special? Customers come in to my store go around and feel lots of different wool products and they almost say 99% of them come back to the Icebreaker and say this is the most amazing.
DEB: Sure. That's great to hear, Cathy. The real difference I guess you know there's always the joke New Zealanders don't like being called Australians and vise versa. If you look at Australian Merino is the major difference there is that typically their sheep graze at a lower altitude in an environment where there seems to be more scrub and bush. Our Merino sheep graze high up the mountains which means there's less scrub, less bush and their wool is a lot cleaner. So when you get to the cleaning process, it's much easier for us to produce a fabulously pure, clean, fine fabric just because of where our sheep have been grazing in the first place. The other, coming back to that the topic of width of the fiber because our sheep graze so high, they basically need an extremely dense coat and to have a dense coat they produce a fine fiber and therefore the terrain they're grazing in and the high altitude creates quite a unique fiber construction.
CATHY: It's so amazing that what nature has developed over the eons in order to promote the survival of these different species and amazing environments. You can't imagine that scientists and laboratories could do anything close to that, you know, in developing these synthetic fibers. So it just shows to me, you know, the technical, the amazing adaptability of the Merino natural fiber.
DEB: Absolutely. You know, Cathy, it's funny, we basically consider ourselves just copied nature. All we did was look at a sheep and say how are they surviving in the middle of winter and in the heat of summer up there on that mountain. You know, what is it that keeps them alive? And we've basically designed our entire clothing system on exactly the sheep principles. So we've borrowed from nature more than created ourselves in the laboratory for sure.
CATHY: You know, here in Michigan, and I don't whether you've had a chance to visit here, but we definitely have winter here and for most people wool is a fiber that is associated with winter. We think of wool in terms of heavy sweaters and coats and mits and yet when customers come into the store and pick up like a Merino base layer or a women's cammy, those fabrics, that piece of clothing is so light and fine, can it possibly keep us warm?
DEB: Sure. Exactly, I guess that's exactly the benefit that these sheeps have in the mountains that we've copied. Their fiber is really really fine, but what they seem to do is we sheer them once a year in summer and they have, using the analogy of a haircut like a number 2, come spring and summer. We copied that by creating our fine layer and then as winter continues their layers get thicker and thicker so what we do is we apply the same principle and develop heavier layers for the winter that you apply on top of each other to mimic exactly what a sheep does and in doing so, the fibers lock into each other and create either extremely warm layering system in winter or a nice fine breathable fabric in summer to wear like a t-shirt.
CATHY: I've always, before I got into the business and understanding what you're talking about in the layering system, I kind of look around at traditional people around the world who wore wool year around and always thought, well it must be that's all they have to wear, those poor people they have to wear wool in summer, but as Icebreakers literature has helped me understand the very fine wool is wonderful as a year around garment too. Could you comment about that?
DEB: Yeah absolutely. It's definitely something that takes people a little bit to get used to, but once they try wearing wool and we really are talking about a fine t-shirt that looks more like silk, once they start wearing it, they really realize the key benefit and those things, there's a few main benefits: One is obviously in Michigan you've, I would image, got a lot of people into water sports..
CATHY: Yes.
DEB: And if they've ever worn a cotton t-shirt sailing and got it wet they know how long it takes for a cotton shirt to dry and for how cold it can get. One of the major benefits of Merino wool is that it's extremely warm when it's wet so if you are participating in water sport, you'll find your Merino t-shirt will dry off really quickly and will keep you warm while it's drying. But then the other major benefit is because it breaths so well, it basically removes moisture from the skin and the fabric drys out quickly. So again sometimes the synthetics you can find that you'll have trouble staying wet for a long time where you're find with Merino the moisture is whipped away very, very quickly. I guess another huge advantage of a Merino shirt over synthetic in summer is what we call the no stink factor. There's an incredible...the sheep are extremely talented at creating a special type of fiber that doesn't allow bacteria to stick to it very easily and because of that when you sweat in Merino, you tend not to have those odors lingering around or the bacteria doesn't linger as it tends to catch onto synthetic. So not only does your top breath well and dry quickly in summer if you get it wet, but you'll tend to find that its definitely got less of a stink factor.
CATHY: Which is really helpful in maintaining your friendships if you play team sports or you sail a boat with a lot of people on it...keeps your friends happy.
DEB: Absolutely.
CATHY: Now, Icebreakers really has been a phenomenal success story. It's not that old a company; I think started in the early 90's is that right?
DEB: '95.
CATHY: Mid 90's and since then it's really had to expand its capacity and improve the technology actually to meet the world wide demand for it's products. And I was reading that Icebreaker has a concept of narrow and deep in assembling a multi-national team in order to accomplish the production that they need to meet their demand. Could you talk about that concept?
DEB: Yeah absolutely. Jeremy Moon who founded the company very much uses the narrow and deep philosophy in everything that he does. When we're talking about production, narrow and deep means working exclusively with fewer amount of suppliers and working extensively with those suppliers. So as we talked about the Merino farmers earlier, we have a deep relationship with few suppliers. It's exactly the same principle that's used in our production so with our production factories we use very few partners, but we have a very deep relationship with them and we use them for a lot of functions. The same thing applies really with how we sell Icebreaker throughout the world. We tend to try to look to find fewer partners to work with and then really deepen our relationship with those partners so that we can make sure there's less internal competition and that we're able to build good strong relationships with our retailers.
CATHY: You know, Deb, we really debated this idea of anything that's made in the far east because we have so many customers who are just very leery of products made in China, and our thinking at Rooted to Nature is that it is a global marketplace and that it would be better to work with companies that are making sure that the production standards, the facilities, the workers' conditions, the salaries, all those things are right in whatever country they're working in and to avoid dealing with companies who work all over the world. Can you give us some perspective of how, you know, if Icebreakers moved to production in the far east and what your thoughts are on it.
DEB: Yeah absolutely. Well starting at the beginning, New Zealand not known for having a huge population of just under 4 million people which I believe approximately a million of us are off shore. We quickly learned that the supplier's global market we really didn't have the capabilities in New Zealand, and also from a sustainability and a practical perspective, shipping from New Zealand around the world is really not been necessarily _________________. So our production team went in search of the best production facilities around the world and we found that three of those facilities, three of the four factories that we use would best found in China and Shanghai. What we actually ended up doing, though, is in one circumstance we found a supplier, a German factory producer that we really believed in, and we co-founded the beginning of the Veon factory with this German Company to ensure that even though we are based in Shanghai and the reputation that it can sometimes have that we had the technology and the best people working for us. We really followed that same philosophy in finding our other partners. We have a sock production factory in the U.S., a French cleaning factory also in Shanghai, and a Japanese sewing factory that we work with in Shanghai as well. So what we're actually finding is that the best producers of the world are choosing Shanghai because of all the benefits of China from a shipping perspective, from a population perspective, and work with those parties that had the same goals as we did around sustainability and social effects to make sure that all of our staff and all of the equipment we use and all of the factory conditions are absolutely of the level that we require. Now they could have been based anywhere in the world, it just happened to be Shanghai was the best place to find those partners. So I guess there seems to be a stigma around China for sure, but what I think we'll find is that as more companies follow the same philosophy as us, China and the east will certainly provide the type of conditions that manufacturers are starting to look for now from an ethical perspective.
CATHY: Thanks, I really appreciate hearing your perspective on that. Is there anything else you can think of that our Rooted to Nature customers should know about Icebreaker?
DEB: Well, Cathy, I know you've got a good following of women who visit your store which is fantastic and not to leave the boys out, but I think one thing that really we've had a lot of feedback on as Icebreaker is that women when we're looking at the outdoors and looking at clothing for the outdoors typically a lot of clothing is very much aimed at a masculine market or not as feminine as we might like so we've really been focusing on this over the last year and developed a beautiful range of active outdoor underwear for women, and we try to make sure that our colors and our cuts fit well for women so that we can still look hip and active while you're out there on the mountain or hiking so I would imagine that's typically something of interest to your customers, Cathy, and something that we've had a lot of positive feedback on recently is people saying oh thank goodness there's a cute tank or a cute cammy or a nice little sweater that I can wear and still go out later on and feel very feminine so yeah, I would think that that's probably of interest.
CATHY: Absolutely. Our customers are definitely drawn to the beautiful colors of Icebreaker. I have to say that Rooted to Nature fell in love with Icebreaker's products. We were attracted to the way they looked and felt, but we really fell in love with them by wearing them and then we came to love Icebreaker's deep commitment to the environment and to social ethics and what we're finding is that when our customers wear the clothing and hear the Icebreaker's story, they love it too. So we feel like it works for us as a company, for us as individuals, and for the earth as well. And so we're really pleased to be affiliated with Icebreaker.
DEB: That's great to hear, Cathy.
CATHY: And I think that's about our time. We covered pretty much everything. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us and helping us to grow our business.
DEB: No problem at all, my pleasure.
CATHY: I'm Cathy Montgomery. Thank you for joining us today on Rooted to Nature Radio. Speaking to Deb Boswell, the North American Marketing Manager for Icebreaker.
ANNOUNCER: For more information on Icebreaker's Merino wool products, please visit www.rootedtonature.com. You've been listening to Rooted To Nature Radio only on VTalkradio.com, radio for the 21st century. Thanks for joining us.
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