British Wool Marketing Board - Part 3

Part 3 covers the tour of the Wool Grading Department at Bradford.  The same process happens across the BWMB eleven depots.

The sheets enter the depot, either from a sub depot or direct from a producer dropping off their packed sheets.  All the sheets are weighed as they enter the depot and are marked with the producers information.

Drop off area and Grading

The sheets are moved into position ready for the fleeces to be hand graded and sorted.  The fleeces are graded according to their type.  The grader takes around 5 - 6 seconds per fleece to access this is looking at among other things staple length, colour, breed and cleanliness.  That fleece is then placed in the appropriate blue tup (skep) depending on decision the grader makes.  The breed of the sheep is not always the main consideration when a grader sorts through the fleeces although breeds like Bluefaced Leicester are always sorted and kept together.

Grading

It is after this point that the fleeces are no longer farm specific (the weights and grades for each producer are recorded so that accurate payments can be made) but instead classified by their grade.  Every grade has a grade number which classifies it into one of the six categories (fine, medium, cross, lustre, hill and mountain) which are then broken down even further (hogs, ewes, breed, colour etc).  

Full Skeps (you can see the grade numbers above)

Once eight skeps of the same grade have been gathered they are then baled into large green bales using the machine below.  The machine compresses the fleeces and wraps them in plastic. 

Green bales

The green baler machine

The green bales are then placed in the warehouse area.  Once there are roughly 24 bales (around 8000kg) this can then go to auction as one lot.  Before the sale a core sample from each bale is taken which is scientifically analysed to provide additional information for potential buyers.  

Other things to note relating to grading and auctioning the wool

• A producer has the option to drop off their sheets at a depot or one of the 14 sub depots.  If they choose not to do this then they are changed a fee depending on where the fleeces are collected from.
• Here is a link to the different grades of fleece (scroll to the bottom of the page).
• There are eighteen auctions a year.  They are all held at Bradford.

If you have any questions let me know! The next few blog posts will all be focused on answering the questions we had over in the BritYarn Ravelry group.

British Wool Marketing Board - Part 2

In Part 1 I talked about a very informative presentation by Gareth Jones BWMB Producer Communications Manager.  In this second post about my visit to the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) I thought I would share some of the things I learnt during his talk.

I mentioned a few stats last time but another interesting and thought provoking one was in 2014 only 1.3% of the fibre produced globally was made from wool.  62.9% was synthetic, 29.1% was cotton with cellulosic, silk, flax and other animal fibres making up the other areas.  

When the board was established in 1950 there was 130,000 sheep farmers (producers) registered with the board.  The board was created to encourage farmers to keep sheep for wool after World War Two.  There was a price guarantee set by the government which dictated the price the farmers would receive for their fleeces.  

Sheets

Currently there are approximately 45,000 sheep farmers registered with the board.  The demand for cheaper man made fibres certainly is a massive contributing factor to the decline in numbers of sheep farmers and the demand for wool globally has dropped in the last 15 years.  However, some of this decline in producers can be attributed to them not being registered with the board and instead using their fleeces for their own business ventures.   

An area which surprised me was just how much the BWMB try and help registered producers regardless of size of flock (58% producers produce less than 500kg fleece) or their location in the country.  

One thing we all need to remember is that sheep must be sheared for welfare reasons, and so those costs are part and parcel of keeping sheep.   The board provide an end to end service from providing the sheets (see part 1), collection of the fleeces from a farm (or a farmer can drop them off at a local depot), grading and auction.  

In theory 'all' the farmer has do once a sheep has been clipped is to ensure their fleeces are packed into the sheets ready for collection.  These sheets are huge and must be packed according to BWMB instructions.   Having seen them being manually moved on a recent BBC programme 'This Farming Life' and read how unpopular they are on social media I can understand why producers might not be happy.  Not just with the physicality of using them them but also in the time taken after a sheep has been sheared to correctly pack the fleece into the sheet.  However, I can now appreciate and better understand why the BWMB insist on them having seen the process in action (more in Part 3). 

The BWMB aims to achieve the best possible market price for British wool for the producers (don't forget the board is made up of farmers) and to make buying British wool as attractive prospect as possible to merchants.  It does this by assisting merchants with things like haulage services and storage.  

Also each and every green bale in an auction lot is scientifically tested to provide additional information to a buyer such yield, vegetable matter, micron count and colour.  This not only ensures quality control but also provides much needed information so a buyer can make an informed choice on auction day.   The services the BWMB provide make then unique.

A lorry being loaded with sold lots

Like I mentioned in part 1 British wool is such a tiny percentage of the global market. The BWMB are trying to go one step further and get British wool noticed on a global market by working together with producers.  For that they certainly get my respect and thanks.

Part three will all be about the grading side.

A Visit to the British Wool Marketing Board - Part 1

An introduction to the day.
A few weeks ago I was invited to go on a Wool Processing Tour at the British Wool Marketing Board (BWMB) depot and Head Office at Bradford.  It was an opportunity I jumped at due to having mixed feelings about the board.  There were many things I wanted to get a better understanding of and answers to.  Over in our BritYarn Ravelry group we also had lots a great discussion in the run up to me going.  Many of your questions and thoughts reflected mine.  

Before I went I grouped these thoughts and questions together into themes.  I will take each one in turn in separate blogs posts over the next few weeks.  A big thank you to each and everyone of you for your input.  

This post is a summary of the day at the BWMB.   I am not sure how many parts there will be as there was a lot to take in and I want to be able to share with you as much as possible.

The day was roughly split into two. The first part around the BWMB and the work that they do.  The second, after lunch, was a visit to Haworth Scouring (owned by Curtis Wool Direct).

On the tour were people from lots of different backgrounds.  There were yarny people like myself, a journalist from BBC Radio York, two farmers and the carpet industry was also represented.  I thought this was really good as it gave different points of view and knowledge. 

After introductions around the table, Gareth Jones BWMB Producer Communications Manager gave a presentation on the work of the board including its history, lots of statistical information about the global wool market and the work the BWMB undertakes today.  Again a lot of information was talked about here which warrants a blog post of its own.  

Some thought provoking stats like British wool (by this they mean greasy wool straight from the sheep) only accounts for 2% of wool produced on the global market and globally 2.1 million tons of greasy wool is produced per annum got me thinking. Globally British wool is a very small player in the wool industry and while our sheep breeds are very special, merchants could easily survive without us.  For me, this makes it even more vital that we all do everything we can to buy British and support the British wool industry.

Gareth also explained that the BWMB is a farmers cooperative and receives no financial support from the government.  It is fully funded by the producers (the farmers whose fleece they process and sell).  The BWMB takes 1p ker kilo off the farmer to provide an end to end service (collection to selling at auction).

At the end of Gareth's presentation he explained how merchants buy wool at auction.  We then went into a live auction which was like no auction I have ever seen,  the auctions are all digital.  All bids are placed by just click of the mouse button.  It is all really, really fast!  While we were not allowed to take any photos inside the auction room for privacy reasons this little video clip shows the screen the merchants see at their desks in the auction room.  

Grading and sorting

After this we were taken to where the fleeces are graded, sorted, packed and stored.   Again this warrants a more in-depth blog post on this.

The set up at Bradford is mirrored across the 11 national depots although the Bradford depot is the largest.   Every single fleece in the country that comes into a depot is hand graded.  This was something I didn't appreciate before my visit.  The grading and sorting is undertaken by a skilled Wool Grader who has undertaken a 5 year apprenticeship.  It takes a grader around 5 - 6 seconds to grade each fleece.  

We were shown where the fleeces enter the BWMB from either sub depots or farmer drop offs.  The fleeces are packed in sheets (big white bags similar to what you might use to store things under your bed but a lot bigger).  A sheet is emptied out to a table, graded and then sorted into the blue containers (skeps) you can see in the photo.  It is after this point that they are no longer farm specific but grade (and sometimes breed specific).  Once sufficient skeps of the same grade (8) have been gathered they are then compressed into green bales.  Everything here is uniformed by size to maximise storage in the warehouses.  The green bales are auctioned in roughly 8000 - 9000kg lots! Like I said getting your head around the sheer volumes was really hard.

The BWMB part of the day was rounded off by a talk from Tim Booth BWMB Marketing Manager.  It is at this point I had to keep reminding myself that the carpet industry dominate the British Wool industry (55% of British wool goes into the making of carpets).  So a lot of the marketing around British wool is influenced by this.   

I hope that this first post has helped share some of what I saw and learnt during my tour.  Look out for more posts about my day over the coming weeks.