British Wool hosts Brintons UK sales conference

Our Head Office in Bradford recently played host to Brintons' UK sales conference. The conference offered Brintons UK sales team a unique opportunity to explore the beginning stages of the wool production in and around Yorkshire, from the farm to the grading of the wool and also the scouring processes before being transformed into their carpet yarn.

The visit highlighted the strong partnership between British Wool and Brintons. Brintons are the biggest single end user of British wool, and all of their carpets are created from a number of unique blends that have been fine-tuned over the years to produce a world renown status within the carpet industry.

Bradford grading depot and Haworth scouring plant

The conference kicked off with a tour around our Bradford grading depot, where attendees had the chance to witness our expert graders. Grading is a crucial step that ensures that the wool used in carpet production meets the highest standards of quality and consistency and use the right types of wool including hill and some mountain types. Our Head Grader at Bradford, Ian Brooksbank, guided the visitors through the process, highlighting the unique characteristics of different wool grades and explaining how these qualities contribute to different uses and end products. The visit to the grading depot emphasised the meticulous attention to detail that sets British Wool apart from others in the industry.

Next on the itinerary was a tour of the Haworth scouring plant, where the wool is cleaned to remove any impurities. There are only two commercial scouring plants within UK, and they are both based in West Yorkshire.

Field to Floor

To complete the journey from "Field to Floor," the conference included a visit to Long Bank Farm at Keasden and hosted by Colin Price and family, along with John Dawson. Here, attendees got to experience the origins of the beautiful British wool used in Brintons carpets.

We also arranged a shearing demonstration with expert shearer, Stuart Hartley, one of our British Wool shearing instructors, to showcase the skill and precision required to shear sheep. Offering this visit to a sheep farm provided a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between nature, farming, and the wool industry that the Brintons’ Sales team can pass onto the consumer and turn into sales.

Working Together

At British Wool we have been working closely with the team at Brintons over the last year or so, supporting and training their global sales teams and provided them with useful sales aids. Creating a greater awareness of British wool and the qualities it offers. This will undoubtedly help Brintons to drive sales in all of the markets they operate in. The conference underlined this collaboration between British Wool and Brintons and the strength of working together to increase wool demand.