Photo: RNZ/Susan Murray
For the untrained eye one bale of wool looks very much like another, but all bales are not equal.
Inside the bulging woolpack there could be super fine wool, wool with a lot of vegetable matter (VM) in it, very white wool, or quite yellow wool. Wool with a lot of crimp, or a short staple length.
All these factors dictate what can be done with that wool when its further processed. They also influence the price someone is prepared to pay for the raw material.
In order to work all this out, bales are sent to the NZ Wool Testing Authority in Napier. All wool leaving New Zealand is tested.
But it's not just wool that gets sampled here. The organisation also has a textile technology centre looking at products ranging from hi-viz fabric, to road cones and trampoline webbing.
Customer Services manager Phil Cranswick says he recently watched a staff member testing a fabric for snake bites. "We are called NZWTA which is the Wool Testing Authority, but we have said that it's NZ We Test Anything."
He said the centre is busy testing hi-viz materials because local manufacturers don't want to import product which they then discover doesn't meet New Zealand standards. Sadly there is a bit of product sold internationally that doesn't come up to scratch he said.
