One-woman Cormo crusade

Kylie Gusset knows most of Australia’s wool is sent offshore for processing, which makes the yarn dyer deadly serious about developing this nation’s homegrown wool processing industry.

This week the Melbourne-based businesswoman is working toward a September 10 noon deadline to raise $33,000 via the online ‘crowd-sourced’ funding website Pozible to finance turning one tonne of greasy Cormo wool from Tasmania into yarn, without sending anything offshore.

The Cormo breed was developed on Dungrove near Bothwell by Ian and Anne Downie, who first crossed Corriedales with Saxon Merinos more than 50 years ago.

Ian Downie’s son, Peter said, until two years ago the 20 micron Dungrove clip was made into socks in the United States, but it is now sold in greasy form on the auction market.

He and wife Anne run 1000 stud ewes and 15,000 commercials. The handful of Cormo breeders in Tasmania and Victoria run about 40,000 ewes. Peter Downie said he had not seen Cormo wool processed into a product in Australia.

“It is good to see people enthusiastic about wool,” he said of the Pozible project.

Pozible partner Alan Crabbe said the Cormo yarn idea was unique. The website had fostered 140 successful projects since May last year, including short films and album releases.

Kylie said the Cormo project was her first opportunity to source wool from unmulesed, sustainably farmed Australian sheep. She is seeking pledges for the Cormo yarn at a price of $215 a kilogram plus postage, promoting the project on Pozible as supporting a rare breed, lowering the wool’s carbon footprint (through domestic processing) and supporting Australian jobs.

Up to Tuesday, Kylie had about $22,000 pledged by 190 people, of the $33,000 needed to get the wool processed into yarn in Victoria. Cormo wool is popular among spinners and knitters overseas, with the greasy wool from imported sheep selling in the United States for US$2.50 an ounce or $US88 (A$84) a kilogram.

She recently took a black Cormo fleece to the Sock Summit in Portland, Oregon, to judge how popular the wool might be. The fleece was raffled for $350 to benefit the Doctors Without Borders charity.

Brunswick knitting teacher Julia Billings has invested in the Pozible Cormo yarn project after experiencing the wool at a Bothwell Spin-In in March this year.

“I thought it felt beautiful and couldn’t believe that we didn’t have any Australian Cormo yarn available.”

Kylie spent weeks researching the limited domestic scouring, topmaking and spinning options for the Cormo project, so she was frustrated to hear that Australian Wool Innovation chief executive Stuart McCullough didn’t think woolgrowers’ levy funds should be put toward developing domestic wool processing.

“It’s a big conversation … I would love to see manufacturing return to Australia, we’ve seen all sorts of tax benefits offered to processors to set up here and it hasn’t worked.

“So should we throw woolgrowers’ money after that endeavour again? I don’t think so,” he told a Wool Week luncheon crowd in Melbourne last month.

“If you want me to put it to the board, I will ask them; it will be a quick conversation, I expect.”

Earlier Mr McCullough said AWI was planning to assist overseas countries, including Bangladesh and Peru, with their wool processing, as it has done in China.

“It’s a big issue, we’ve got $70 million dollars; we’re not going to move the needle of manufacturing away from China, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking at it.”

Kylie said for Australia’s rare sheep breeders and the local wool processing industry to thrive they might need to “break away” from AWI.

“My jaw hits the floor when I hear things like that (Mr McCullough’s stance on domestic processing).

“If AWI continues to only seek Australian white Merino wool for export, we have no choice but to break away and form some other type of organisation that looks at rare and coloured breeds, and local processing,” she said.

“That’s what customers are looking for and AWI is literally pulling the wool over people’s eyes.”