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Alpaca Ultimate: What’s it all about

Most alpaca breeders by this stage would have at least heard of Alpaca Ultimate and it’s introduction of the National Alpaca Fibre seminars & the Ultrafine and Superfine Bales.
However, many don’t yet understand what it’s all about!

Firstly, who is involved with Alpaca Ultimate, the current directors are Penny Pittard of Currabungla Alpacas, Merilyn Mathews of Daisy Bank Alpacas both Australian Alpaca breeders and most recently Brian Kitson & Maggie Sewell of Adobe Alpacas represent Alpaca Ultimate in New Zealand. Brian & Maggie have been heavily involved with alpaca product design, manufacture and retailing for many years and bring a wealth of valuable experience to the group. We are entirely self funded and share a passion for excellence in alpaca from breeding to the end product.
Julie McClen of Oak Grove Alpacas is our associate involved in the collection of fleece & promotion of Alpaca Ultimate.

Alpaca Ultimate’s goal is to secure a profitable commercial market for alpaca fleece,
this being essential for the future of the alpaca industry.
Alpaca Ultimate was formed out of the recognition that the industry would never truly focus on this most profitable end of the market if there was no financial incentive to do so. Whilst alpaca sales attracted high prices and show ribbons made more impact than fleece statistics, it has been hard for breeders to focus on low micron and low SD in alpaca fibre if they couldn’t see a financial gain.

After much discussion with those in the fibre industry who actually buy and process our alpaca fleece, it was clear that we were not always providing them with the product they required. Most wanted lower micron fibre with no guard hair.
As in any natural fibre industry, the lower the micron the higher the price paid per kilo, so it is an avenue worth pursuing from a growers perspective.

The National Alpaca Fibre Seminars in 2006/07 enabled buyers to speak directly to growers with valuable Q & A between the two groups.
This first seminar led onto the second that focussed on how to achieve the production of elite fine alpaca fibre that would make the whole process worthwhile.

In between the two seminars, emerged the ground breaking Ultrafine & Superfine Bale projects, which for the first time proved to the many critics that such a dream could become a reality.
The Ultrafine bale secured $60 Kg from AAFL for growers of white huacaya fleece under 19 micron & the final result was a bale of the highest quality alpaca fibre with an average micron of only 17.9, which set an Australian record.
Alpaca Ultimate is now focussing on creating new markets for fine alpaca fleece.

Alpaca Ultimate continues to be on the cutting edge of innovations for the use of alpaca fibre and are currently buying white huacaya up to 28 micron on the grid sample. The whole fleece is grid tested by an independent fibre tester which provides an objective means to calculate payment to breeders and allows AU to accumulate fleeces into lots with minimum variation. Breeders are paid 2 months after the test date.

Alpaca Ultimate is focussed on making fleece production in alpacas the mainstay of the industry and has projects that utilises not only the ultrafine, but also white fine fibre to produce an exquisite new line of fabric etc for high quality garments

Fine fibre doesn’t always carry the same definition of crimp & structure or have the density of medium micron fleece and it doesn’t always win you as many show ribbons, but it wins hands down for making real money on alpaca fibre.