Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

The Alpaca Fibre Forum, a co-operative founded by breeder Su Lenk, is leading efforts to establish a niche UK market for the fleece of the South American relative of the llama.

It is already seeing results from its efforts, doubling its membership of alpaca breeders to 31 and quadrupling the amount of fabric produced to more than 1600 metres in their second year, from just 250 alpacas.

While the UK industry is still in its infancy, Lenk feels a cohesive commercialising effort will see a wider adoption of alpaca fleece based textiles, which have distinct advantages over other luxury textiles such as cashmere.

Lenk said: “The goal for the next year is to produce worsted woven fabrics suitable for tailoring as well as scarves, stoles, blankets and throws.

“While we are limited in any one year to the amount of fleece we collect, with the growth rate so far we are confident of being able to extend the range every year of British-made textiles from British-bred alpacas.”

The alpaca fleece yields micro-bore or hollow fibres, which means it is both lighter and warmer than other sheep’s wool based fabrics, allowing it to be worn in both the summer and winter. Processing is also less expensive than sheeps wool, for example.

The fibres are fine enough that there is no need for a de-furring process and also the alpaca fleece contains no lanolin, which has to be scoured out during the processing of sheep’s wool.

Even from a small meterage last year, Lenk’s fleece yielded a 20 per cent profit. Despite these advantages Lenk estimates that the UK would need to increase its alpaca population to around 35,000 to create a viable textile industry.

With a UK total of around 7,000 alpacas, the Forum is some way from the joys of economies of scale. Conversely, as niche producers of a luxury product, “quotas and price-setting marketing boards” are still alien concepts.

The Forum currently sends its fleece to small weaving and spinning mills in Yorkshire, and garments are produced in strictly limited edition numbers.

At the moment the UK is home to 3,500 females which produce one offspring per year, which puts the target for critical mass 10 years off. But Lenk believes a carefully controlled breeding programme within the UK herd is the way forward.

The arduous journey from Peru to the UK coupled with the one year stay in quarantine required by law does not make for a happy alpaca, according to Lenk.

But the establishment of a co-operative is an important first step in the creation of a thriving UK industry, she says.

“Sales of our initial garments and fabric have been very encouraging, and has included ponchos, gillets, skirts and jackets.

“Large scale commercial sales of our first year’s meterage was too small to be of interest other than to the more exclusive designer. But we have made inroads.”

The fleece quality has drawn interest from a Saville Row tailor, a high-end sports outfitter which will make a hacking jacket, and a designer of fine scarves which wants to include alpaca in its range.