Latest news with #AlanaCheape
NZ Herald
20-05-2025
- Business
- NZ Herald
Woolchemy: New Zealand company wins global award for eco-friendly hygiene breakthrough
Chief executive Potroz Smith said it was an honour to receive the recognition. She said neweFibre was 'a testament to what's possible when we align innovation with nature'. From paddock to product neweFibre provides the core material for neweFlex, which will form the basis of all future Woolchemy innovations for hygiene products. neweFlex, is used in products such as nappies, feminine hygiene, and incontinence care. Each nappy contains about 1g of strong wool, combined with plant-based fibres. The material is certified 100% biobased (by Beta Analytic) and designed to mirror the structure of human skin, thanks to wool's natural keratin proteins. The wool is ethically sourced from New Zealand farms known for high environmental standards and quality, including regenerative grazing practices and low-input systems that help preserve soil health and biodiversity. A global problem, a local solution According to Woolchemy, an estimated 2 billion hygiene products are used and discarded every day, 93% of them made from petroleum-based plastics. The company said its innovation offered a renewable, high-performance alternative that broke down naturally and was gentler on skin. Woolchemy's work is already attracting international attention. neweFlex is patent-granted in two jurisdictions and pending in 14 more. Building a circular future Woolchemy said it aimed to enable circular design in one of the world's most waste-intensive industries by transforming strong wool - a renewable and often undervalued fibre - into biodegradable materials that replace fossil-derived plastics. Circular design is about creating products that are made to be reused, recycled, or returned safely to nature, not thrown away. In 2019, Woolchemy's founding team was joined by Alana Cheape, a personal hygiene industry expert with 12 years of experience, to help guide the company's commercial and technical strategy. 'Our technology offers a rare combination of high performance, environmental responsibility, and skin health benefits,' Potroz-Smith said. 'We're proud to be working with global partners who are serious about bringing next-generation consumer products to market.'
RNZ News
20-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Hygiene-grade wool producer wants to be the Fonterra of wool
Derelee Potroz-Smith, right, and Alana Cheape from Woolchemy Photo: Supplied The co-founder of a company transforming sheep wool into period products, nappies and incontinence pads wants to "bring real value back to wool". Wellington start-up Woolchemy has taken top honours at Idea 2025, a global awards for the non-woven and engineered fabrics industry. Woolchemy won the gong for its groundbreaking product neweFibre - which it says is the world's first hygiene-grade wool - and capable of replacing petroleum-based plastics in disposable hygiene products. Derelee Potroz-Smith - an electrical engineer whose family has bred sheep for six generations - said she was proud that this innovation has been developed in Aotearoa. "This is the world's first hygiene-grade purified wool fibre, we're adding value to the wool fibre and it's a higher cost that we're exporting. People wanting hygiene-grade wool fibre will have to come to New Zealand to get it. We're incredibly proud of that - and it means more money, back to farm." She said the award not only gave Woolchemy a lot of recognition in the hygiene sector, but in the non-woven sector. "It's a recognition that's on a global level. To win this award you have to convince a very technical panel of judges that your product actually works and we went up against some pretty big companies... It puts both wool, and our work, our many years of R&D into this product, in the spotlight." Woolchemy products. Photo: Supplied Potroz-Smith founded Woolchemy with her mother, north Taranaki sheep farmer Angela Potroz, about 10 years ago. Wool had been used in hygiene products in the past, she said. "So we weren't necessarily doing anything particularly new. What we were doing was trying to figure out how to make wool absorbent so we could get it into the inside of the products and use more fibre, but also use the benefits that wool brings to a healthcare product that would make it better for people." She said the bio-materials company was challenging a $126 billion industry dominated by synthetic materials. Woolchemy's patented materials used natural wool fibres engineered into high-performance structures that were skin-compatible, scalable, and - critically - renewable and biodegradable. New Zealand-sourced strong wool was scoured in Hawkes Bay or Taranaki and then shipped to Europe, where it was purified and processed at up to 200 metres per minute. The resulting product was then used as a component in hygiene products. "There are two billion single-use hygiene products used every day and 93 percent of them are plastic. This award recognises a pivotal shift toward sustainable alternatives, and it's being driven from Aotearoa." Woolchemy products. Photo: Supplied Woolchemy's product was being trialled by two hygiene manufacturers, one in the US and another that covers Australasia as well as the States, who are looking to launch early next year. It was also in talks with companies in China and Europe, she added. Potroz-Smith says she wanted Woolchemy to become "the Fonterra of the wool sector" - a large company exporting the majority of strong wool overseas and getting farmers a strong return. The name Woolchemy came from a friend, who suggested that alchemy was about taking something ordinary and turning it into gold. "Our original tagline was about turning wool into gold. But wool already has amazing superpowers - it's just that no one has really taken advantage of it." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
