9 of 20 Stages of the Evolution of British Wool
Washing and Processing
On the 23rd of June I visited Haworths the wool processors based in Bradford. Haworths are one of the largest scourers in the country, processing up to fifty million tons of wool per year. It was here I learnt about the scouring and processing of wool so I could understand the feasibility of processing smaller quantities of specialist wools.
One of the key problems for processing ancient and heritage sheep breeds is that these factories were set up on the basis of high volumes and low margins, therefore it is not financially efficient to run smaller quantities at present.
Part of my social enterprise would be to work with industry, including scourers and the wool board, to stockpile enough yarn to make financially efficient scouring runs.
Many of the wools from rare breed sheep were kindly gifted to me as raw fleece. This trip was invaluable for me to understand how to wash the fleece and allowed me to complete my collection of British wools.
