Two-thirds of Bremworth’s wool yarn supply could be out of action for months, while demand for carpet is set to spike following floods.
The carpet company’s chief executive Greg Smith told Markets with Madison the cyclone ripped through the company’s Napier plant, ruining specialist machinery and totalling an insurance claim likely in the tens of millions of dollars.
Bremworth posted a $778,000 net loss for the six months to December this week but its utmost concern was sourcing alternate wool supply offshore to ensure it could benefit from an expected uptick in carpet demand, he said.
Smith estimated between 10,000 and 20,000 homes were affected by flooding and that would cause a spike in demand over the next three months to a year.
“That could be as much as 300,000 metres of carpet that’s required.”