Megan Seator was looking for a new use for the strong wool produced on her Southland farm. Photo: Supplied
A Southland sheep farmer is channeling the adage "gentle as a lamb" in her new range of skincare products.
Megan Seator started contemplating new uses for the strong wool produced by the family's Romney sheep when she was home on maternity leave. Wool prices were down as were meat prices.
"As many people already know, wool is such an amazing product and there's already a lot of people out there doing quite cool things with wool, but I wanted to do something totally different," she told Country Life.
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Looking into the actual make up of the wool fibres, she stumbled across Keraplast, a company in Christchurch which extracted the keratin from wool to use in hair care and beauty products.
"I kind of realized maybe I'm the person to do it," Seator said. The result was Romene - the te reo Māori name for Romney.
Current products include three different sheet masks made using local ingredients, but she's keen to explore other possibilities too.
"We are bringing to market new and innovative ingredients based on New Zealand's primary industries into skincare. We're doing some really cool things with keratin extracted from New Zealand wool, as well as lactoferrin protein peptides extracted from New Zealand dairy milk."
Romene is developing skincare products derived from wool and other primary sector products. Photo: Supplied
She said the focus was to launch into the travel retail market in New Zealand, with aims to export.
Initially she was looking to target East Asian consumers in places like China, Japan and Korea, but a soft launch in Auckland recently attracted so much interest she's also looking to make the products available domestically.
Seator said it was about keeping up with consumer trends and innovating and adding value.
Being part of the supply chain - from the farm to the consumer - offered producers more control, including over pricing, she said.
"We're really good at growing animals, or growing grass, or plants, but you know, it's about maybe creating our whole supply chain, rather than just being at one end."
Despite the challenges which saw her start Romene, Seator is optimistic about the future of sheep farming in New Zealand.
"We're just going to keep on farming, and yeah, keep on telling the New Zealand story."
Learn more:
- You can learn more about Romenehere.
