Pure wool yoga mats

PURE WOOL EXERCISE MATS TICK ALL THE COMFORT and sustainability boxes ensuring they are right at home in the hippest of yoga studios while adding value to strong wool.

The brainchild of the Schwass family, who farm Kaiora Downs, a 1400-hectare hill country sheep and beef property near Culverden, the exercise mats were born out of a passion for wool and a frustration with continually poor returns for their 31-32-micron wool clip.

Determined to do something about it, Jane Schwass says they were adamant they didn’t want to send their wool overseas in order to add value to it.

It was an encounter with a wool processor who had wool felting machinery that set them on the path to producing exercise mats.

Produced with an ethos of minimal impact, the mats are simply washed, dyed and felted and given a latex rubber backing.

Jane says being wool, the mats are warm, luxurious, anti-microbial, they breathe and they don’t slip. At the end of their working life, they can be used as a pet bed, weed matting or simply allowed to decompose.

The family started small with their venture by just sending a couple of bales away for processing into mats, in January of this year the whole clip (second shear) went down to the scouring plant in Timaru.

Jane, who farms alongside her husband Mark, says their adult children have all had some input into the venture.

A family chat group allowed the Schwass’ to consult with each other at every stage of the process from the design through to the manufacturing and marketing. A family friend has helped with the marketing of the mats which has only just got underway.

The wool that goes into the mats is produced by the family’s 3600 crossbred ewes who are shorn six monthly.

The family have a strong environmental focus and have undertaken significant planting in the 20 years they have farmed the farm.

The mats are $95 + postage and available from www.kaioradownsmats.co.nz