CALGARY – A June trade mission to Mexico has paid off for Calgary’s Joan Embleton, who is negotiating exotic fibre exports with the textile industry there.
Meetings with Mexican buyers and tours of textile mills could result in contracts for shipments as large as a one-tonne container of angora this year. Smaller orders of 100 to 500 kilograms of other fibre like mohair, llama and alpaca could go out five or six times a year, she said.
“The first order may not be lucrative but we are working on building a trust relationship between the two countries.”
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Embleton, who has a brokerage company called Norton Angora Exports, is returning to Mexico in mid-July with larger samples of various exotic fibres so the Mexicans can do test runs with their equipment. They also want to experiment with acrylic, cotton and wool blends to check how the Canadian product performs, along with its durability and lustre.
During this next trip she hopes to establish prices, order sizes and delivery times.
She said the Mexicans are interested in not only the top-grade fibre for garments but second-grade material for items like footwear and bedding. Fibre-producing animals in northern climates tend to produce better coats and in warm countries like Mexico high quality wools are harder to find.
Her next step is to catalogue the fibre inventory in Canada.
“We need more people to tell us what they’ve got.”
Embleton knows people have been stockpiling fibre and some have gone the cottage industry route selling yarns and hand-made garments on a small scale.
“This will be a constant source of income for their fibre.”
The Mexican trade mission evolved after she realized there were too few buyers for the fibre her rabbits constantly produced.
As a spinner and weaver she knew the quality of Canadian fibres was there, so she started looking for sales. With the signing of the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico, an opportunity seemed to appear. Doors opened with the help of Agriculture Canada and some homework through embassies who arranged introductions, tours and meetings with buyers.
