THE GOLDEN FLEECE
Taking inspiration from her parents’ Warwickshire alpaca farm, Kerry Lord has spun a stylish and successful eco-conscious brand
How a Warwickshire alpaca farm provided the inspiration for a successful, eco-conscious brand of stylish yarns
IT’S 7AM AND GOLDEN MISTY SUNLIGHT is emerging over Draycote Water on the outskirts of the village of Dunchurch. Kerry Lord finishes her cup of coffee, four-year-old son Edward and five-month-old Alexandra at her side. After handing over the children to her mum, she walks across the courtyard to the Toft studio, accompanied by a comical humming sound from a 200-strong herd of alpacas anticipating their breakfast.
Kerry’s parents moved from London to rural Warwickshire 25 years ago with their four children in search of ‘the good life’. They bought a wreck of a 19th-century hunting lodge on ten acres and set about transforming it into a vibrant smallholding. But rather than stocking it with sheep or cows, Kerry’s dad Rob, a successful theatre director, bought four alpacas to start a stud farm instead. “Back then, alpacas were seen as a novelty livestock that only eccentrics kept,” Kerry says. “There were just 500 in the UK; now there are 50,000. Many people had them as pets to mow the lawn and, despite their cuddly appearance, they’re great at protecting farm animals from foxes.” Kerry’s parents’ focus, however, was breeding and genetics – an alpaca can sell for anything between £500 for a pet to £150,000 for an award-winning stud male.
After completing her English Literature degree at York in 2006, Kerry returned to the smallholding for the summer, unsure of her next move. She was put to work, sweeping the barn and helping with the shearing. Then her parents came to her with a dilemma – what to do with the vast amount of fleece that was being produced. It wasn’t part of their business plan, but it seemed such a waste
not to do anything with it. “I expected to find a fleece merchant, as you would with sheep, but there were none,” she says. “Then I looked into whether there would be buyers if we turned the fleeces into yarn, but again drew a blank. So I thought, ‘Right, if there isn’t a market for it, I’ll create one.’” As a result, in September that year, Toft, named after her parents’ farm, was ‘born’.
Kick-starting national demand for a product such as alpaca yarn would be a challenge for an experienced entrepreneur, but Kerry, then 22, had no business background to draw on. However, she feels this gave her an edge, because caution didn’t hold her back. She simply trusted her intuition and saw no logical reason why her plan wouldn’t work: “Ten years ago, most people in the UK didn’t know what an alpaca was. It’s only in the past five to eight years, as more products with alpaca fleece in them have found their way onto the high street, that awareness and its popularity as a fibre have grown.”
Using £1,000 given to her by her parents, Kerry’s first step for the business was to create a simple line of knitted products, including hats and scarves, for which she enlisted a knitting team of retired local women. She then sold them at local craft fairs. “I took only £100 at our first one, which was held in our village hall, but it felt like the best thing in the world,” she says.
In those first few months, Kerry worked round the clock, overseeing every aspect of the business, from sorting the fleece and designing the website and brochures to spreading the word on social media. During this time, she also opened a small shop in the grounds of the smallholding, selling the knitwear and small batches of yarn to give the brand a permanent presence.
By Christmas that year, Kerry realised she would have to start buying in fleece from other UK breeders to meet demand. Here, she faced her first real challenge: persuading other alpaca farmers, mostly older men, to work with her. “My age and gender made it an uphill battle. They probably didn’t know what to make of me, this over-enthusiastic upstart – but that made me more determined to stand my ground and get a fair price for the fleeces,” she remembers.
Her hard work paid off and, as the business continued to grow, she set about renovating one of the listed outbuildings across the courtyard into a multi-purpose studio and workshop. The move enabled her to shift Toft’s focus away from knitwear to patterns and yarn – just as the British public began to embrace knitting again. Today, the shop is a beautiful light-filled space looking out onto fields of alpacas. Kerry initially made the decision not to dye the yarn, instead maintaining its natural shades, which are a perfect complement to the room’s brick walls and wooden beams.
It’s no surprise that customers enjoy spending time in this space. When Toft started offering knitting and crocheting workshops in 2011, they were held once a month, but this quickly expanded to several times a week and, since last year, daily – including Sundays, one of their busiest days. “My vision was to reignite a love of knitting in the wider public, across the generations. There’s nothing I love more than the ‘clickety clack’ of the needles above the cacophony of people laughing and chatting,” Kerry says.
With the help of a DEFRA Rural Growth Programme grant, Toft has grown by 10-20 per cent each year since it started. It now
has 60 stockists across Europe, from independent shops to major retailers such as John Lewis. Another source of success has come from an unexpected direction. “While expecting my son Edward, in 2013, I started making crocheted animals,” Kerry says. “Within a fortnight I had a dozen different ones. That sparked an idea to write a beginners’ crochet book featuring animals that would appeal to children and adults alike.” Edward’s Menagerie was released in September 2014 and went to number one on Amazon’s bestseller list. Its follow-up, Edward’s Crochet Imaginarium, was similarly popular. “They have become our main money earner,” she notes.
Following the books’ success, Toft has gone from having four full-time staff members to 20, allowing Kerry to further support the British textile industry by setting up her own innovative internship programme run in conjunction with major textile programmes at UK universities: “We offer three- to 12-month placements with on-site accommodation, during which time interns shadow every aspect of the business, and even help to design the knitwear collections. We really try to channel their strengths. In turn, we develop a talent pool that knows the brand intimately, so at the end of their course they often return. In fact, half my current staff are former interns.”
Looking back on Toft’s tenth anniversary, Kerry says she never expected it to take off the way it has: “Developing and growing the business has been exceptionally hard work, given how hands-on I am. My mother is retiring so she can help out more with the children, but I know I have to be careful about my work-life balance and make time for my long-suffering husband, Doug. They have been so supportive throughout my journey and I feel incredibly lucky to have a job I’m passionate about.”
For more information on workshops, yarn and kits, visit thetoftalpacashop.co.uk. Edward’s Crochet Imaginarium (Pavilion, £14.99) is out now. CL readers can receive a 10% discount across the website (excluding Ed’s Animal Club) until 1 February 2017 by using the code CLDC6429.