The Rural Voice, 1993-12, Page 28Bruce couple spins a good idea
into a success story
Philosopher's Wool Co. proves there can be money
in growing wool for the Canadian market
By Keith Roulston
or Eugene and Ann
Bourgeois the pre -
Christmas period is
so hectic that the only
way we could conduct an
interview was to talk by
phone in Waterloo one
evening after a craft show
there.
The Bourgeois operate
Philosopher's Wool Co. at
Invcrhuron, producing yarn
from their own wool and
wool bought from other
farmers in the arca. They
also operate a retail
business selling knitting
kits and hand-knit sweaters.
The fall brings a constant
round of craft shows throughout Ontario but it's rewarding.
November accounts for 30 per cent of the retail sales for
thc ycar while September brings 20 per cent and December
10-15 per cent, Eugene says. Even in their wholesale
business the September to December period brings 80 per
cent of the year's sales.
Philosopher's is a success story that has been celebrated
in such national magazines as Ilarrowsmith. The company
has an unusual background to say the least. Eugene and
Ann moved to a bare piece of land at Inverhuron, built a
house and barn and began raising sheep. This in itself was
unusual because Eugene has a masters degree in
philosophy.
Then in the mid-1980s he decided to have some wool
from the couple's own sheep made into yarn so Ann could
knit. After he had found a mill in Prince Edward Island to
scour the fleece and spin it into wool, he was impressed by
how much more wool was worth than he was receiving. At
thc time, shepherds were receiving 32 cents a pound for
raw wool. He figured the value of his wool, when he
processed it himself, was $2.35 a pound.
About the same time he was reading that during the
American Civil War, farmers were being paid $2 a pound
for their wool. Given the intervening inflation, he felt
farmers should at least be able to get $2 a pound today.
He began encouraging other farmers to do what he had
done and The Philosopher's Wool Co. was born. It was a
political act, he says. Besides hopefully getting more for
the producers' wool, the new company would withhold
wool from the regular market, hopefully increasing prices.
24 THE RURAL VOICE
Eugene and Ann Bourgeois: from sheep to sweaters.
The goal of reaching
that $2 a pound price has
been met, Eugene says,
with an average price of
about $2.35 in the past
year. There's a catch,
though. The company
pays on a yield basis. The
cleaner the wool, the more
reward the grower will
get. A grower of dirty
wool, if his wool was
accepted at all, would
receive less.
"This has left us with
some of the best wool
anywhere," Eugene says.
Because they start with
cleaner fleeces they don't
need harsh chemicals to clean the wool.
"Most modern wool is washed in sulphuric or
hydrochloric acid," explains Ann. The acids, along with the
detergent, strip the fleece of chaff, dirt and moisturizing
wool fats, leaving behind a hard, scratchy material.
Replacing the lost lanolin with commercial oils does little
to feturn the wool to its original softness. Many people are
allergic to some of the chemicals used. The process used in
cleaning wool for Philosopher's uses just enough detergent
to eliminate any dirt and to remove only a bit of lanolin so
that dyes can "take".
"That's what makes our sweaters and sweater kits so
soft and desirable," Eugene says.
Philosopher's is catching on. This year it will sell
upwards of 14,500 pounds of yarn — that's the equivalent
of 7000 sweaters or the fleeces of 4,500 sheep.
hile the bulk of the wool from Philosopher's
Wool Co. is sold as yarn to shops across North
America, the company also has a growing retail
business, both in kits for people to knit their own
sweaters, or in hand-knit sweaters. The sweaters are
produced by about 35 knitters working in their homes,
producing from five or six sweaters a year to one every 10
days. "They learn a lot of technique to speed up their
work," Eugene says.
One man, who died recently, took up knitting only after
he retired, and produced 26 sweaters for the company in a
year and a half.
The knitters are located throughout the area but one,
who originally began knitting when she lived in Ontario,