{"id":398948,"date":"2026-04-26T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/398948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:04:09","slug":"woolfi-founder-on-turning-strong-wool-into-sustainable-indoor-footwear-small-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/398948\/","title":{"rendered":"Woolfi founder on turning strong wool into sustainable indoor footwear \u2013 Small business"},"content":{"rendered":"

The abundance of strong wool has historically gone into carpet and flooring. For me, it was all about heroing strong wool and celebrating the fibre in a modern way, so we\u2019ve created woollen indoor footwear designed for comfort, durability and longevity.<\/p>\n

What inspired you to start the business?<\/p>\n

I grew up on a high-country merino farm in the South Island and I\u2019ve always been interested in celebrating the fibre in the most sustainable manner. For years, I was thinking about what products we could make from wool, and then, having worked in the industry prior to this, I knew this was a possibility.<\/p>\n

I wanted to create something using our natural resource that\u2019s right on our doorstep, that\u2019s in abundance, and really create these beautiful products.<\/p>\n

How are your products made?<\/p>\n

I had this design that I loved based on the Japanese house slipper, and so I knew about felting, and I knew about machine felting, but I didn\u2019t know about the traditional craft of wet felting, which is quite different.<\/p>\n

\"Woolfi,Woolfi, founded by Fiona McIlraith, sells a range of durable, breathable wool slippers and boots made from New Zealand wool.<\/p>\n

After hours of searching, I managed to come across a Nepalese manufacturer who could do this process. They literally just take carded strong wool and, by using soap and water, they bind the fibres together. It creates this incredibly strong fibre that\u2019s super thick and super strong, which is very different to machine felting.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all done by hand by these amazing women, and for me, it was about celebrating their craft. I didn\u2019t want a product that was made in China, as it didn\u2019t sit well with me. I wanted something that was sustainably produced, but also protects this craft and jobs for these women.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve been running the business for three years now, how is it going?<\/p>\n

We\u2019re definitely getting traction, which has been great. We sell direct, but we\u2019ve had some really supportive wholesale partners come on board and that\u2019s probably 20% of our business now.<\/p>\n

A key one is our partnership with Global Culture, which is in the likes of Queenstown, W\u0101naka, Christchurch Airport and the Viaduct in Auckland.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve really targeted those tourist domains because we find that works well with our seasonality, because obviously, we\u2019re busy in winter and then our partner retail is busy in the summer.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re testing in the New Zealand and Australian market with them, with the ultimate goal to be in the US and the UK markets this coming winter, fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

\"Woolfi'sWoolfi’s range of slippers and boots are crafted using a special felting technique by Nepalese manufacturers.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the biggest highlight since you started the business?<\/p>\n

I think the fact that people just love the product. Being a small business is hard and it\u2019s always hard when you\u2019re doing it on your own. You question what you should and shouldn\u2019t be doing, but then when you get positive feedback, it\u2019s really validating. It gives me the warm fuzzies anytime someone gives me a good review.<\/p>\n

What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re starting, the product doesn\u2019t need to be perfect on day one. We got the product out there and we got feedback, which was really important to help understand how people would use it. Our earlier versions were quite different and harder to get on, so it helped with the next iteration.<\/p>\n

You learn a lot from your early customers, so get out there and talk to people.<\/p>\n

Tom Raynel is a multimedia business journalist for the Herald, covering small business, retail and tourism.<\/p>\n

Stay ahead with the latest market moves, corporate updates, and economic insights by subscribing to our Business newsletter<\/a> \u2013 your essential weekly round-up of all the business news you need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The abundance of strong wool has historically gone into carpet and flooring. For me, it was all about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1443,138,10166,44158,42565,311,71,69620,296,91994,25336,205934,111,139,69,90,24390,6180,28702,4499,213,18835,21324,301,25809,205935,12970,205933,80],"class_list":["post-398948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-about","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-fiona","tag-footwear","tag-founder","tag-from","tag-indoor","tag-into","tag-learnt","tag-lessons","tag-mcilraith","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-raynel","tag-shes","tag-similar","tag-small","tag-sports","tag-strong","tag-sustainable","tag-talks","tag-turning","tag-underutilised","tag-wool","tag-woolfi","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}