Quality Wool senior team members David Kay, Genevieve Dyson and Mark Dyson with Techwool Trading leaders Rod Franklyn and Evan Croake during the companies’ merger announcement.

TWO family owned and operated wool businesses have decided to merge their regional wool marketing divisions, significantly expanding the national footprint of leading broker, Quality Wool, and consolidating the country’s largest wool exporter, Techwool Trading.

Undr the merger taking effect from July 1, there will be no new entity name, but the Techwool stores will be rebranded Quality Wool and the wider country buying division will come under the name, Quality Wool.

Mark Dyson of Quality Wool and Rod Franklyn of Techwool Trading have been long-time family friends, as well as friendly rivals “on the field.”

However, they both recognise the strong synergies between their country divisions and the opportunity to evolve their businesses and increase support to growers during a period of industry change.

The merger will further grow Quality Wool’s expansive country network through the South East of South Australia and Victoria, and will allow Techwool Trading to hone its focus on the ongoing development and success of its exporting division.

Techwool Trading wool stores at Kingston in SA and at Hamilton, Mortlake and Laverton in Victoria, plus its wider country buying division to the north, will join the national Quality Wool network, and all existing staff at the sites will be retained.

Headquartered in Adelaide, Quality Wool has regional sites at Jamestown, Bordertown, Dublin, Eden Valley, Naracoorte, Lameroo and Karoonda in SA, in addition to its Port Adelaide wool store.

The company is already located at Bendigo, Ararat, Benalla, Mansfield and Ballarat in Victoria and has sites at Parkes, Orange, Condobolin, Grenfell, Gulargambone and Deniliquin in New South Wales, while its reach also extends into Queensland and over to Western Australia. All stores feed into Quality Wool’s major receival store and show floor in Geelong.

The business, which is celebrating 35 years this season, offers a comprehensive range of marketing and buying services, including premium traceability marketing opportunities through quality assurance schemes such as Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) and ZQ by Zentera, plus on-farm wool collection.

Its growing network, innovative approach to warehousing and streamlined logistics have allowed flexible, fast, low-cost wool marketing for growers.

“The Techwool Trading sites fit perfectly into our network. Including Naracoorte, they strengthen our support to growers across southern SA and Victoria through to Geelong,” said Mark Dyson, managing director of Quality Wool.

“Our support for growers of premium traceability wools will further grow in the region and the economies of scale will improve marketing efficiencies and allow additional service benefits. Growers will have easy access to deliver direct to our store in Geelong, but we will also be running a trucking service to the Western Districts out of Geelong.”

Wool industry leaders Mark Dyson, Quality Wool, and Rod Franklyn, Techwool Trading, are looking forward to the future after announcing the merger of their country wool marketing divisions.Images: Patrick Callow

Techwool Trading managing director Rod Franklyn said the merger was a strategic move to allow specialised support to continue to its grower clients with another family-owned company that had built a strong, sophisticated network and had great relationships with farmers across Australia.

Mr Franklyn said, in turn, it would allow Techwool Trading to further specialise its exporting business and strengthen its buying power throughout Australia.

He said both companies held similar values and approach to business, hence he anticipated a seamless transition for Techwool Trading’s country wool buying division.

Source: Techwool Trading, Quality Wool