Lisa Portas didn’t set out to research wool – she set out to research what wool could be. The 2025 Nuffield Scholar, until mid-2025 part of the Palliser Ridge executive team alongside her husband Kurt, has spent more than a decade adding value to wool, running diversified operations spanning honey and agritourism, and moving fibre directly to overseas buyers. Originally from the UK and now based in Featherston in the Wairarapa, Lisa also serves as Associate Trustee at AGMARDT.
The question that pulled her into a Nuffield was simple but stubborn. New Zealand produces some of the best strong wool in the world – natural, renewable, biodegradable, and farmed in systems overseas consumers say they want more of. And yet the sector has struggled for decades to deliver reliable returns to the farmers producing it. Lisa wanted to know why, and where the contradiction breaks.
Her research took her through the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, speaking with growers, processors, brands and supply-chain businesses. Different countries. Different markets. The same three themes kept surfacing.
The wool businesses earning stronger, more consistent returns were not the lucky ones, or the largest. They were the ones building systems around three things – certification, credible data, and supply chains with purpose.
Certification was the bluntest of the three. In many overseas markets, recognised programmes had quietly shifted from optional to essential. Without them, suppliers were excluded from higher-value conversations before those conversations began. The point was not compliance, it was access.
Data was the second pillar. Buyers increasingly wanted evidence around emissions, environmental performance and traceability, not anecdotes. The story alone was no longer enough. In the US, Shaniko Wool Company anchored the lesson – certification combined with years of verified soil carbon and environmental data was earning the business not only fibre premiums but additional environmental contracts, flowing meaningful income back to ranches.
The third was connection. The businesses returning the strongest margins were not necessarily the biggest operators. They were the ones deeply aligned across the chain, with growers, processors and brands working to clear specifications, long-term relationships and shared commercial goals. Wool, treated as a specialised product with provenance rather than another commodity traded on volume.
Lisa’s findings translate back to New Zealand in concrete ways. Keraplast, working with Wools of New Zealand, has offered above-market contracts for certified wool feeding into premium ingredient supply chains – an early signal that verified specifications can lift the farmgate. Norsewear and LOF show what is possible when traceability, design and sourcing story combine into a finished product consumers are willing to pay more for.
Her conclusion is direct. Future value in strong wool will come less from volume and more from proof, positioning and partnerships. Global markets are no longer asking whether wool is natural. They are asking whether growers can prove it, trace it, and supply it consistently. The farmers and businesses with credible answers are the ones likely to capture lasting value.
