“We have noticed that the rumble is hard,” says the CEO of Pirtin Kehräämö in Mikkeli.
Here it is now. With a sack sale. Super popular Finnish sheep wool.
CEO of Pirtin Kehräämö, which spins yarn from wool Päivi Hämäläinen opens one sack in a wool warehouse in Hiirola, Mikkeli. The sack contains wool wound from a white Finnish sheep.
“Finnish sheep’s wool is distinguished by the fact that it is so curly. And when it is pulled straighter, it has a great shine, ”says Hämäläinen and brushes the woolen sheath.
This curly and shiny wool is now coveted by many.
CEO Päivi Hämäläinen in the warehouse of Pirtin Kehrämö in the middle of wool packaging. The stock smells of sheep and wool.
Natural materials, the value of ecologically, ethically and locally produced materials has grown over the years. Finnish wool was also on the rise.
Then came the Korona time. The Finns closed their homes and started knitting. Social media channels were filled with Icelandic knitwear, Strömsö sweaters and colorful wool socks. The sale of woolen yarns skyrocketed.
Wool yarns at Pirtin Kehräämö’s factory store in Hiirola, Mikkeli.
Domestic wool also got sucked into that ascent. High-quality, litter-free wool from Finnish sheep is now especially in demand from sheep farms, and it is well paid for.
“It looks really good,” says the executive director of the Finnish Sheep Association Marjo Simpanen.
“There is a lot of demand and also for different types of wool. Not only do you want the finest handcrafted wool, but there is also a demand for coarser wool. It may have happened without the corona epidemic, but it did affect it radically. ”
According to Simpanen, even before the pandemic, Finnish wool products and yarns began to go to Asia. According to Simpanen, it was influenced by, among other things, the branding work of wool by Myssyfarm in Finland. The hat farm also sells hats knitted by table grandmothers abroad, which are made from Finnish sheep’s wool.
Villan the increase in demand is now reflected in both sheep farms and further processing. New companies are being set up and existing companies are taking over domestic wool as a raw material.
Villas at Pirtin Kehräämö’s warehouse in Mikkeli, waiting for further processing. In Mikkeli, other work is done in the spinning mill, but large batches of wool are washed in England and a large part of the yarn is dyed in Pirkanmaa.
For example, Porin Villa and Peite use domestic wool to fill pillows and blankets.
Lapuan Kankurit, also known for its flax products, has also started sourcing domestic wool for its products. The company collects Finnish sheep’s wool within a radius of about 200 kilometers from Lapua and processes it into its own products.
The company is currently organizing the wool supply chain and building a wool spinning mill as well as a wool weaving, finishing and sewing line. The first products containing domestic wool will be completed in the autumn.
“What we achieve is exceptional on a Finnish scale. Vertical production that leaves just out of fiber until the finished product, ”says the CEO Esko Hjelt.
Lapua more employees are now being recruited. Lapuan Kankurit currently employs about 50 people, more than 30 of whom are in Finland and the rest in a subsidiary in Lithuania. According to Hjelt, the company is now investing heavily in wool.
“We are talking about three million euros. It means machinery, equipment, real estate, wool sourcing and design. Our turnover is around 7.3 million, so it’s a big effort, ”says Hjelt.
The special properties of Finnish sheep wool are, for example, curl and shine. A hood wound from a Finnish sheep in the hands of Päivi Hämäläinen in Pirti’s Spinning Mill.
Last year, two new spinning mills began operations. Three more will start this year. The largest of them is Saimas Spinnery in Puumala, three businesswomen. The company has recruited four employees, who it now trains in the secrets of wool. The activity will start in the summer.
“There is a strong belief and view that Finnish wool and its further processing are profitable. In addition to Finnish sheep’s wool, we spin alpaca, mohair and, gradually, a recycled textile fraction that has been opened from clothes that can no longer be used, ”says the wool expert, CEO Sanski Matikainen.
Mikkeli resident Pirtin Kehräämö buys wool from sheep farms all over the country and produces its own yarn under the Villanka brand. The company, which is over 70 years old, also spins yarn for customer companies and lamps.
“We have noticed that the buzz is hard,” says Päivi Hämäläinen.
The carding is used to make fluff yarn, which is further processed into yarn by stretching it to a suitable yarn thickness and giving it a twist.
Päivi Häkkinen works with the winding machine at Pirtti Kehräämö, which winds single-stranded yarns together into double-, three- or four-thread yarns. In the repetition, the wire is strengthened. Häkkinen has been working in the spinning mill for 35 years.
For years, there would have been more demand for the company’s products than the company has been able to produce. The corona-era wool boom finally encouraged the company to expand: last year, Pirtin Kehräämö bought the Jämsä Felt Factory property and machinery.
The company’s turnover doubled.
“The biggest reason for this was the start of the Jämsä unit. Without it, the growth in net sales would be in the order of about 30 percent, ”says Hämäläinen.
“Growth has not been as aggressive at the beginning of the year as it was a year ago, but it has not stopped. Customers are also predicting more growth, and demand for e-commerce is growing. ”
Two years ago, Pirtti Kehräämö had 12 employees, now 24, of whom 16 work in Mikkeli and 8 in Jämsä.
Pirtin Kehräämö is now assembling a network of contract lamps and developing wool logistics such as collection stations together with them.
Pirtin Kehräämö, over 70 years old, operates in an old barn in the village of Hiirola, north of Mikkeli, which has been expanded over the decades.
Wool yarns are ventilated in the frosty Pirtin Spinning Mill.
Further processors already competing for wool. The availability of wool is affordable, as it is estimated that half of Finnish sheep’s wool ends up being destroyed.
Garbage and poor quality wool that is not suitable for spinning ends up as waste. The low price has also been due to the low price of wool.
For many light bulbs, wool recovery has been economically unprofitable. The transport of wool has often been the responsibility of the lamps.
“Now the situation has changed,” says the project manager Anu Pentti About Southern Finland from Pro Agria.
“When wool suddenly became in demand and out of competition, the price per kilo of good quality wool has even doubled. Further processors have already set up wool collection points and are looking for wool directly from the farms. ”
There are currently about 70,000 ewes in Finland, ie female sheep. The picture shows the sheep of Paavila’s sheep farm in Juva, Southern Savonia.
This everything has increased the interest of lamps in the sale of wool.
Anu Pentti is working on Pro Agria’s wool project, which aims to increase the availability and utilization of domestic wool. The project trains lamps to produce good quality wool and sort it correctly.
The project will be implemented in Southwest Finland, Pirkanmaa, Southern Ostrobothnia and Ostrobothnia. There are many sheep and large farms in these areas, some of which do not yet collect wool.
Although more good quality wool would be produced in the future and wool recovery would be more efficient, some of the wool would still not be suitable for spinning. It may be too short, felted, or very dirty.
Now, even this wasted wool is being tried to recover. It is also being considered in the Willatus project, which has been launched at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (Lut University). The aim is to find new uses for Finnish sheep’s waste wool fiber and for lanolin, or wool fat, and keratin, or wool protein.
Saimas Spinnery, which is starting in Puumala, for example, is also striving for the efficient use of wool.
“We’re also starting to recover lanolin, which we’re making products for at some point. And we try to utilize all the wool that cannot be spun, for example as roofing material for vegetable gardens, ”says Sanski Matikainen.
In Juva, In Paavila sheep farm in Southern Savonia, sheep chewing hay in the shelters of their plush wool, blissfully unaware of the wool boom. Room lamp Kirsi Equivalent and a wool entrepreneur Hanna Niskanen instead, they have followed the demand for wool with even greater interest.
Lampuri Kirsi Vertainen (left) and fresh wool entrepreneur Hanna Niskanen in the cold lamp shop of Paavila sheep farm. They are happy that the value of Finnish sheep’s wool has increased.
The wool boom inspired Niskanen, who had been a lamp for ten years, to give up sheep and become an entrepreneur. The business idea started with a fleece jacket, which he bought a few years ago, like many other Finns. The pattern on the jacket was nice, but the synthetic fleece felt bad.
“I was wondering why not do this from domestic wool,” says Niskanen.
Now he has founded the Saimaa Wool company, which is starting to produce woven fabric from Finnish sheep wool.
Paavilan on a sheep farm, the buoyancy of the wool has increased the farm’s own vegetable-dyed yarn sales. The farm produces meat, wool and yarn. The farm of 70 ewes has Finnish sheep and a few crossbred sheep.
The good price paid for first-class Finnish sheep’s wool has led Kirsi Vertainen to consider increasing the number of Finnish sheep.
Lampuri Kirsi Peerta spins the wool of her sheep into yarn and dyes them with vegetable dyes.
“The Finnish crown jewel is now this Finnish sheep’s wool,” he says, recalling an encounter in the Christmas market.
Wool yarns sold by peers came to be watched by an older gentleman – in a fleece jacket too – who said, “Isn’t this wool pretty much yesterday?”
“How wrong he was,” Peer says amused.
“Today, probably no one thinks anymore. Wool is an ancient material, but it is so today and in the future. ”
Kirsi Vertainen holds a “damage lamb” in her arms in the barn, which was born at the end of January. Usually, the Equator tends to mate the ewes so that the lambs are not born until spring.
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