Operational improvements and creating new demand discussed at British Wool conference

British Wool has been working on several initiatives over the last year to underpin its three strategic pillars of Maximising Price, boosting Member Engagement and delivering Organisational Efficiency delegates at the British Wool Annual Conference were told last week.  Andrew Hogley, British Wool’s CEO, explained that these measures were designed to strengthen the business and improve returns for members over the long-term.

“Our mission is to drive demand for British wool to maximise returns for our members.  To do this, we need a structured approach to marketing our members’ wool, a competitive auction and an efficiently run organisation whilst also strengthening our engagement with members.  These initiatives the team have been working on all support this strategy”.

“Our marketing team have made huge strides over the last year to develop the British Wool brand identity.  In a global commodity market, we must make sure that we differentiate British wool from competing wools of other origin.  Our Brand Identity is focused on the high Animal Welfare and Environmental standards that our members work to, and the quality of grading and traceability provided by our depot teams.  This strategy is bearing fruit and has helped grow the number of businesses specifying British wool in their products by over 30% in the last year.”

Having a competitive auction is key in ensuring British Wool maximises the value of members wool.  Mr. Hogley added: “Our Wool Sales team have been working to improve access to the auction which have been fully online since Covid - we now have a much better balance of competition in the auction with several new buyers participating.”

Operationally a new IT system has been rolled out in the depots which enables British Wool to provide full traceability on every bale of wool sold but has also boosted productivity.  This system represents a step change for efficiency and further differentiates British wool from competing types.

Mr Hogley concluded: “Prices at auction have picked up over the last month.  Whilst they are still not where we need them to be I’d like to reassure our members that British Wool is working hard to grow demand for their wool.  At the same time, we are focused on delivering improved service to our members and driving operational improvements in the business.”