South Africa visit and Mohair Fibre Cape Sale
Last month, some of the Seal International fibre team travelled to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, to meet with our exclusive buyer who is based in Port Elizabeth and attend the mohair fibre cape sale in March.
Our global reputation for reliability and availability doesn’t only come from being one of the world’s largest stockholders of noble fibres, it also comes from our company ethos and how we develop partnerships with suppliers as well as customers.
We ensure we source the best quality products from the most trusted suppliers & origins. Our trip to South Africa was another fantastic opportunity to dive into the appraising process in the mohair fibre stores & implement our solid buying strategies for the season with Alice, as our contact on the ground.
We met with Alice, the week before the auction, where we began our preparation for the auction by visiting ‘House of Fibre’ mohair stores. Our first job is to analyse the mohair fibre catalogue and view the bales of mohair which are lined up in number order, ready for appraising. We visually assess the length, yield & micron of the fibre in each of the bales/bins at the stores, and select the mohair fibre we are interested to purchase which is Responsible Mohair Standard (RMS) mohair. This preparation can be done up until the day before the auction begins.
On the day of the auction, we met again with Alice and headed for a full day of buying at the cape mohair sale. The auction room was full, with buyers from other companies, there was an air of excitement & tension in the room as the Seal International team was present for the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic. And the open cry bidding commenced.
After a successful day of buying, we met for a debrief with our newest team member Laverne who is handling our logistics as well as the transaction certificates as part of the RMS mohair auditing procedure.
Following the debrief meeting we update our market quote prices for our customers to work from.
The greasy mohair lots which we purchase at the sale are then booked in our system for processing. Some of which are done in the cape & some are done in the UK at our own mill.
It was a great trip and wonderful to meet with Alice & Laverne & we look forward to seeing them soon at the Basuto sale on June 13th.
