Harriet Toogood
Source: yorkshirepost.co.uk
It is one of the oldest domesticated plants known but a Yorkshire textile company has found a new use for hemp after creating its most environmentally-friendly product to date: a flame-retardant fabric for office furniture.
Camira, based in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, has just launched its hemp-based fabric, which comes in 30 colours, in the UK to upholster chairs and sofas for offices as well as schools and colleges.
Marketing manager Ian Burn said: “It performs well on lots of different furniture types. It is easy to upholster and performs to strict flammability regulations and abrasion standards.”
He added: “It’s in its very early stages at the moment but its price point is very attractive so we hope to attract furniture manufacturers as well as interior designers and architects.”
Hemp is already grown commercially for cosmetic purposes. It is also used in health foods, paper and even construction blocks in the building industry.
However, the fabric now forms part of Camira’s collection of wool bast fibre fabrics, which is expected to add £1m to its turnover by the end of 2013.
The fabrics combine wool with plants which have natural flame retardant qualities.
The hemp material comprises 60 per cent wool and 40 per cent hemp, and, according to Camira, it is the most environmentally-friendly fabric the company has ever produced, with a lower carbon footprint than other fabrics.
The collection also includes a nettle blend, which is used by high-profile companies including Google at its US headquarters.
The nettle fabric was launched to the market in 2008 after a four-year research project but Camira said it now needs more farmers to start growing the plant.
“It is quite expensive because there is not much of it,” said Mr Burn. “The hemp, on the other hand, is more readily available and is easier to grow.”
Compared to cotton, nettle is far stronger but is finer than hemp and other bast fibres. In the past, nettles have been used in Scotland as a replacement for linen.
To safeguard and promote the supply of both hemp and nettle, Camira is joining forces with farmers in Leicestershire to set up a bast fibre farming company.
It is also hoping to add flax to the collection and is in discussions with Merci, a Manchester-based organisation, to take flax grown on brownfield sites in Manchester and extract the fibre, blend with wool and spin it into yarn.
The company is also helping Starbucks to become greener by helping the coffee chain to dispose of jute sacks in an environmentally-friendly way by grinding them into fibre and turning them into a luxurious fabric called Wojo.
Camira, which has 475 staff and annual sales of £51m, is one of the largest textile firms in Britain, selling some 10 million metres of fabric annually.
The company operates on a worldwide basis in markets such as commercial offices, hospitality, education, healthcare and mass passenger public transport
It employs 225 staff in Huddersfield and Mirfield but aims to create up to 100 jobs in Yorkshire by breaking the £75m turnover barrier in the next three years.
It recently appointed assistant designer Harriet Toogood, a woven textiles graduate from Brighton University.
She is working as part of the design team, bringing her ideas to the drawing board, working on custom-made projects, core developments and research into new product areas.
Camira fabric is used by banks, bus, coach and rail firms, including East Coast mainline trains. The company has also supplied the fabric for the new BBC Media base in Salford Quays.
It has a 60 to 70 per cent share of the UK office market but exports make up the majority of the business, accounting for 60 per cent of the company’s sales.
Camira sells in up to 80 countries a year. The company has offices in countries including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Hong Kong, China, Australia, and Belgium.
It also opened up a US office in Indianapolis in September 2010.
Mr Burn said: “We’ve just had our first full year of operation. The US market is still a new venture for us but we beat our budget last year and also recruited about 20 independent sales representatives.
“We are continuing to develop there and the hemp fabric will be launched in the US in June.”
He added: “There is massive potential over there for us.”
Meanwhile, Camira recently formed a new partnership with a distributor in China and one of its sales representatives is now based there 50 per cent of the time.
In addition, it still sees room for expansion in its core European market.
Back in the UK, Camira is about to open its first showroom in Clerkenwell, London.
Mr Burn said: “It will be based right in the heart of where the big architectural practices are based.
“When they are specifying products and end users are choosing furniture, we will be right on their doorstep.”
The company has been independently recognised for outstanding product innovation and environmental stewardship, gaining Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in Innovation in 2005 and Sustainable Development in 2010.
A leader in the textile world
Camira was founded in 1974 as Camborne Fabrics. The company changed the office interiors industry by supplying fabrics quickly from stock with no minimum order quantities.
Camborne was acquired in the 1990s by the US modular flooring specialist and environmental pioneer Interface.
The company changed its name to Interface Fabrics and had nearly 10 years as part of the group, benefiting from its world leading environmental standing.
A management buyout in 2006 led to the creation of Camira. Along the way, the company has acquired new capabilities and entered new market areas, taking it into 3D knitting and mass passenger transport under the Teknit and Holdsworth brands.
It now has 475 staff and annual sales of £51m, making it one of the largest textile firms in Britain.
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