CARPET SUCCESS

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32588, 23 April 1971, Page 3

CARPET SUCCESS

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent) I LONDON, April 22. {More than 200 years after Captain Cook, a British I firm has rediscovered New Zealand, and the result is likely to be the most valuable sales in Britain of New Zealandmade tufted carpets. For a year now. U.E.B. Industries has been selling long-pile carpets in Britain, and among the stores marketing the new “shaggy" range has been Harrods, the department store in Knightsbridge. But one leading store was not selling New Zealand carpets—Heals, of Tottenham Court Road, LonI don’s most exclusive and: expensive furnishing' shop. [Then came the discovery. ; I “We have discovered,” Heals I declared in publicity j posters this week, “that New Zealand actually has sheep farms that breed for carpet making alone. In the sunniest part of central North Island a special breed of sheep has been developed from the Drysdale ram to provide the spec- i ial wool just to make carpets,” and so on. BIG PROMOTION Heals has backed up its discovery with a massive advertising campaign for 1 the New Zealand-made

| carpets, and has big displays in its store this week for 100 per cent pure wool carpets. The New Zealand Trade Commissioner in London (Mr A. E. Monaghan) said the acceptance by Heals of th? carpets was a break-through for New Zealand industry. “This company sells only the very best of goods,” he said. “It deals solely in quality goods and if your goods do not meet their extremely high standards, they do not want to know you. “I feel that if New Zealand can handle as sophisticated a market as this one I it can handle any market.” $500,000 AIM

| Mr M. Sainsbury,' of U.E.B. Industries, said the tufted carpet trade in Britain could be worth $500,000 to his company in the financial year begun earlier this month. “That is our budget,” he said. “So far we have done very well with lowerpriced carpets, and we were very pleased to be accepted by Debenhams, I one of the biggest chains of department stores, which has 76 stores round Britain. “If we can sell at Heals our more expensive carpets which retail at $19.26 a

square yard or $77 a running yard, then we have every chance of achieving our target.” FIRM PLEASED

A spokesman for Heals said the New Zealand-made carpets were by far the best the company had found anywhere in the tufted range.