Rural determination

Dianne Boyack is a rural businesswomn who is putting in the hard yards to get a business up and running.

It all started when she needed someone to shear her alpacas, she decided to do it herself.

When she needed someone to collect her wool, match it with that of other growers and have it spun into graded yarn, she did that herself too.

Now she’s looking at exporting alpaca wool, and again she’ll learn the necessary skills to fill the void herself.

Boyack’s entire business has grown out of her determination to make her stock pay its way and, in the process, she’s become the go-to woman for alpaca farmers all over New Zealand.

Earlier this year she was shortlisted for the Enterprising Rural Woman Award,
which recognises the creative ways that rural women find opportunities that offer work-life balance and create employment in isolated communities.

It also highlights the ways they overcome geographical challenges to run successful businesses far from commercial centres.

Boyack, her husband Paul and their two children started the alpaca herd on their Pauatahanui lifestyle block north of Wellington with two alpacas, alongside a menagerie of pets and livestock.

When the local alpaca shearer had to retire due to ill health, Boyack took a shearing course and now shears alpacas all over the lower North Island through her business, Just Alpaca.

With an entrepreneurial streak which had formerly been trained towards consultancy work in small business marketing, Boyack opened a retail store focusing on New Zealand-made alpaca products.

She needed yarn and started asking around her networks.

She got around 20 farmers to supply her with their small hauls of alpaca wool, and she collated it all into a decent sized batch of 300kg.

This was sorted into various grades, and Boyack had the resulting bundles spun into high quality yarns.

Through word of mouth, her suppliers grew to 250 and today she does runs of four tonnes.

Through the scale they achieved as a group, alpaca farmers were suddenly able to make money out of what had previously been a virtually worthless kilogram here or there.

Boyack has closed her shop and is based back on the farm, concentrating on manufacturing, distribution and training of alpaca farmers.

Some yarns are sold back to the farmers and some to commercial clients who use it for exclusive garments and throws.

Her margins are lean and the profits have been thin as she has developed systems but, for the first time this year, she is expecting to draw a profit comparable to a part-time wage.

Just Alpaca’s overheads are minimal but isolation presents challenges.

Some trucking firms won’t deliver to her rural property so Boyack travels the country for several weeks each year collecting the wool from each farm herself.

This is worked around running a bed and breakfast called Huntaway Lodge, shearing during the October to March season and farming her own flock of 20 alpacas.

Boyack is now preparing to export and says initial research shows there will be a market for New Zealand alpaca, capitalising on its Downunder origin as a point of difference.

Boyack’s systems are so detailed, she can offer customers a photograph of the animal a ball of yarn came from, and this is expected to be a hit overseas.

Boyack says the rural lifestyle has enabled her to participate in activities with her children, while running a business that grew out of her own determination to shear her own animals and find a way to sell yarn.

Cottage industry

North Otago lifestyle block neighbours Kay Parker and Dixie Boraman, also award finalists, were both searching for a creative outlet and one idea kept bubbling to the surface – handmade soaps.