Sustainability
A topic that is not only on everyone's lips, but also deeply anchored in our company DNA, is the sustainability of our products. This begins with the climate- and nature-friendly lifestyle of alpacas in small herds in the highlands of the Peruvian Andes.
For the good of the climate.
Alpacas are animals that have been strongly domesticated for several generations and are thus kept almost exclusively for breeding. The annual shearing and the associated extraction of the high-quality alpaca wool is the primary source of income for every alpaca farmer. Factory farming? No way! The average herd size is 80-100 animals, most of which are kept by an alpaca farmer who has grown up in isolation in the highlands of the Andes. There, the animals have natural access to water sources as well as to almost unlimited grasslands - the predominant part of their diet. This means that there is no need for climate-damaging supply chains, neither internationally nor domestically, to ensure that the alpacas are kept in an animal-friendly manner. As a result, alpacas are highly efficient animals that require significantly less land and water for breeding than cashmere goats or sheep.
To preserve nature.
The toe as well as the teeth of alpacas are adapted to the multiple use of the pasture. Alpacas do not have hooves, instead two toes with a soft foot pad provide a soft tread for the animal, causing minimal damage to the pasture. Cashmere goats, on the other hand, cause high erosion of the grassland through their hooves and also pluck out the plant, including the root, so that the land does not grow back and the grasslands become increasingly parched. Alpacas do not damage the sward, so that new land can grow again on the already grazed land.
