All the way back to the sheep

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FEELING SHEEPISH: Apparel firm Icebreaker is offering its customers the chance to find out how their clothing came to be using its new 'Baacode' system.

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The propaganda: first came the chicken, then the egg. But what really came first, and being able to prove it, is becoming more and more important in a consumer-driven world inundated with questions of sustainability, ethical production and product integrity.

Traceability is the overriding concept - an old concept in many industries, but one that is emerging in nearly every facet of commercial production as consumers start to insist on knowing what they are spending their money on.

Switch chickens for merino sheep and you are getting the gist of the "Baacode" initiative Wellington outdoor apparel company Icebreaker introduced this week.

Its entire production chain is transparent and accessible through a unique "Baacode" number on each garment delivered to stores. It is about putting itself ahead of its competitors but also making sure the customers who care can find out how their clothing came to be.

From the high-country merino suppliers through to the French wool blender and Japanese fabric manufacturers in China, the whole process is explained through entering the one-off "Baacode" into Icebreaker's website.

With the ability to track a garment back to a small cluster of merino sheep stations, Icebreaker founder Jeremy Moon says the process recounts the journey that underpins his company ethos.

"It is a real experience and it is all true. A lot of marketing is about making up stories and trying to convince people it is true. This is about trying to tell the truth transparently. We are trying to change the relationship people have with the company."

The story he is telling has been more than a decade in the making and is defined by the top-end merino clothing Icebreaker sells, but only in the past year has effort and considerable investment been injected to take it the final step to the consumer.

Mr Moon says the South Island origins of Icebreaker wool and the manufacturers and processors along the production line have been carefully selected and cultivated in accordance with Icebreaker's stringent quality standards, and promoting that is important to the brand.

By contrast the Australian merino industry is in tatters, Mr Moon says, caused by questionable animal welfare practices. Differentiating Icebreaker's merino growers from the Australians is crucial to maintaining integrity in the market, even at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars that it took to set up the Baacode initiative. "You get value for it because there are a lot of people who want to buy things with integrity, but they don't know. So when you have something with integrity it makes sense to tell people about it."

Canterbury Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend says Icebreaker's example is the only way New Zealand is going to survive, and the Baacode scheme is more about survival than a feel-good marketing gimmick.

"He [Jeremy Moon] is desperately interested in justifying the integrity of the product because that is where his growth is, not on price. His products will sit on a rack in Vancouver at $200 right next to another merino product that looks similar at $15; and his biggest problem is managing his growth. That says it all.

"If New Zealand thinks it has a future on selling products on price it is doomed. But we can compete on the integrity of the offering; we have the right ingredients to do that."

Mr Townsend remembers a story about a North American woman who wanted to buy an Icebreaker top, but before she did she wanted to know that the dogs used to muster the sheep in the merino stations were well treated. "That's the level where it is heading, that's the reality."

But if companies did not back up their offerings with genuine information, it was game over. "Integrity requires justification. If you get caught out, you are dead."

The Internet provides as much misinformation as it does information, and Mr Moon says Icebreaker's ethos is backed by myriad certifications but at the end of the day it is up to the consumer. "People either believe you or they don't. If you have a relationship based on trust, if you ever mislead people, it is over permanently. It is a very stupid business decision to mislead people."

Top-end produce exporter Leaderbrand regards Japan as a critical market and the Japanese high-value sector has a lightning-fast reaction to any bad news on food, particularly imported food, export manager Andrew Vette says.

To manage that expectation Leaderbrand has built intricate traceability systems designed to guard its market position and value by linking its products back to the paddock they were grown in, underpinning their quality assurance offering.

The Japanese market has food scares constantly and an entire industry can be shut down for weeks in such a case, he says. The system does not make the company immune to these scenarios but the added confidence it engenders makes its products the first to be sought out in times of doubt.

The Internet has made concepts like traceability feasible and in turn compulsory, Mr Vette says. "We are all so accessible to the market, and we want the information. Twenty years ago we couldn't get it."

Technology is affording avenues to consumers to demand more information, but Megan Hosking, a Wellington business owner and mentor to sustainable business network Intersect, believes it needs to be pushed harder.

With greenwashing (marketing as sustainable or enviro-friendly without actual practice to back it up) becoming almost as common as genuine sustainability initiatives, Ms Hosking says traceability is verging on compulsory.

The mindshift required to achieve the kind of change needed goes far beyond most people's idea of sustainability, but harnessing technology could facilitate the "leaps and bounds" required, she says. "Social networking and the power of information sharing between people means we are getting

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