Local Fibre

Our Mill is situated at the heart of Devon, so we strive to work with as much fibre which is reared and sheared on this land as possible, utilising the unique properties of each breed in our yarn and tops and cutting down on transport emissions.

Buying Local – Our Fibre Philosophy

Here at John Arbon Textiles we’re very passionate about our wool. We love it, and we really want you to love it too! This is why, as well as our careful and considerate processing on our beloved vintage machines, we also ensure, as best we can, that we
are buying a good base product to work with.

We strongly believe in buying local wool fibre for several reasons:

It’s travelled less. All of our UK grown wool hasa very low carbon footprint – it travels from the farm to the British Wool depot (all of the South West wool comes into the depot just down the road from our mill), up to Yorkshire for scouring, carding, combing and dyeing, then back to the mill ready for processing. That’s only a few hundred miles, compared to most commercial textiles that get flown all round the world for processing, even if it says they’re from the UK (most fine fibres are processed in other countries such as China or Italy, regardless of where the sheep originated or the final product is sold). This means that even if you’re in a far-flung place, you can buy our wool knowing
that it hasn’t already had a jetset life travelling the globe and burning up all that fuel.

It supports the farmers. It’s not easy being a sheep farmer. We’ve all heard stories about burning wool because it’s not worth the fuel to take it to the depot for sale, or prices for lamb being undercut by imports from the other side of the world. Sheep are
also prone to the occasional outbreak of stupidity (aren’t we all), needing rescuing from awkward and bizarre locations, or just fetching back from wherever they thought the grass was greener. Here in the UK, sheep are bred predominantly for meat and grazing, not wool, so shearing is mostly done for welfare reasons. So, on top of all the other issues that farmers are facing, being able to recoup some costs (or even make a profit) by selling the wool is an important part of keeping an at-risk industry afloat.

It uses abundantly available and renewable resources. This means that no-one has to mine or drill for environmentally damaging and limited resources – wool is easy and cheap to grow, keeps on growing, and even captures a little carbon along the way. Our focus is on buying readily available local fibre and adding value to it, so we currently choose not to purchase organic. If we did, this would exclude most of the local fibre, and as we said already, being a sheep farmer is hard enough in the current economic climate.

We can see what we’re buying. When you can see the sheep in the fields around you and know that you’ll be working with their wool in the future, it’s very reassuring. It means you can check the quality and welfare more easily, as well as confirm the
supply chain. We often pop down the road to the wool depot to have a look at the fleeces coming in and check on the quality or characteristics of any particular lot we might want to buy.

It’s now fully traceable. We’ve teamed up with the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) as the first yarn company to use their new traceability scheme, meaning that all the wool we have bought at auction through them since September 2022 is fully traceable back to the exact farm it came from. We know which farmer, in which area, contributed to every bale of wool we process, including how many sheep produced their share. It takes a little while for the greasy bales of wool to filter through our system into finished yarn, but soon pretty much all our British wool will be fully traceable from sheep to skein. We are pleased that the additional payment we make within this system also gives an uplift on the auction price direct to the farmer, ensuring that they’re getting a slightly better price on the wool each time as well. This system benefits everyone – the farmer gets a better price, we get better knowledge of what we’re working with, and you get the knowledge that our supply chain is secure, honest and traceable.

It supports the local community. Exmoor, and Devon at large, is full of farmers (as I’m sure every cartoon, TV accent and other trope has told you already!) Supporting local industry keeps communities together, provides jobs and keeps traditions and skills alive for future generations. We’re proud to contribute to our local economy and try to use other small local businesses wherever possible. As you may have realised, we love where we live, hence the focus of this Annual being Exmoor.

Our other fibres. We do of course also buy non-UK grown wool, as even though we have a LOT of sheep breeds on our tiny archipelago, we don’t have ALL the sheep, and we do love a bit of variety. We source all our Merino, Corriedale and Polwarth from
the British Falkland Islands through our wool agent Andrew Bowman (of Wooltops) who knows each of the farms he works with personally and visits them every few years. These breeds aren’t kept in the UK and most live even further afield in Australia and New Zealand. As the Falkland Islands are in the South Atlantic and do most of their trading direct with the UK, the wool air miles aren’t as bad as they could be!

Our Wool Agent – Andrew Bowman

Our production concept is simple – a return to old style manufacturing, sourcing raw fibre (locally wherever possible) and converting it in Britain into high quality, luxury yarns and fibre tops. To help bring this to life we work closely with Andrew Bowman of Wooltops. He is our Wool agent and sources many of the beautiful fibres we make into tops and yarns at our Mill.

Wooltops, set up by Andrew’s grandfather, has an established supply chain that is 100% committed to focusing on the traceability of its wool products. Sourcing from the UK whenever possible, the British Falkland Islands, and from selected farms around the world, Andrew gets to know the farmers he works with and their sheep farming techniques that produce (Mulesing-free) premium wool. Andrew works closely with spinning mills that share his ethos and enthusiasm (this is where we come in) so the passion shines through. Wooltops and John Arbon Textiles together, specialise in taking wool from the farm right through to the highest quality spun yarn.