Australian Merino Wool is especially suited to apparel end-use due to its fine texture and clean, white appearance. The quality of fibre selection begins on the farm.

Australian woolgrowers are continually conscious of the contamination of their clip, as contaminated wool attracts a lower sale price. AWI helps woolgrowers reduce the incidence of clip contaminants, such as urine staining, and natural fleece pigmentation that arises from mixed or darker sheep breeds. Programs such as the Dark and Medullated Fibre Risk (DMFR) Scheme, whose development was in part funded by AWI, help wool producers reduce the incidence of clip contaminants.

Australia produces more than a quarter of the world’s wool, and approximately half of the wool utilised by the global apparel market. It exports more than 350 million kilograms of greasy wool annually worth more than $2.5 billion (2008/9 year source from ABARE). The Australian wool industry’s key export destinations include Asia, Italy and India, with China purchasing more than half of this quantity.  

In addition to its naturally-occuring quality, Australian Merino is stringently vetted for the highest quality, using a standardised wool appraisal system (AWEX ID), objective measurements, and a registered auction system, all of which provide competitive and realistic prices based on estimated processing performance.