Our Journey

Line and Anne Line met by chance at an alpaca course. This would prove to be the start of an alpaca adventure that would never be short.

As some of the first alpaca owners in Norway, they helped start the Norwegian Alpakka Association in 2007.

Four years later, the company Norsk Alpakka AS was formed.

 

Starting small

Two small farms with a few alpacas were the starting point. None of the farms had any previous experience with production animals, so this was a new and exciting industry to get into.

The learning curve was steep. After all, we were among the first to start alpaca farming in Norway. Alpacas were an unknown animal to Norwegians, and we therefore had to seek advice, courses and information from abroad, as well as gain our own experiences on the farms and learn from each other.

Exciting diversity

For us, naturalness is important. We use the shades that come directly from the animals' own diversity – light and dark. An alpaca's fiber can be almost completely white, it can be light or dark gray, a lovely chocolate brown or a deep and powerful black. The variation is great, in fact there are 22 basic colors and over 250 color shades. This is one of the things we find exciting about alpaca.

The quality of the fiber also varies. Norsk Alpakka has a high level of expertise in sorting alpaca fiber, and we only use the best fiber for our products – fiber that is fine, strong and has the best heat-insulating properties.

Norsk Alpakka focuses on animals that are healthy and vigorous, good animal husbandry and new bloodlines.

Professional partners

In order to have enough fiber for our production, we are dependent on purchasing fiber from other alpaca farmers and directly from farms in England. These are producers who meet our requirements for animal welfare and fiber properties and who are quality controlled either by ourselves or our professional partner.

In order to make mittens, blankets, knee pads or other products, the fiber must first be washed and eventually spun into thread. It is then knitted or woven into a textile. This is an advanced industry, and we have had to look beyond Norway's borders to find the expertise and equipment needed to spin a thread that is thin enough. In England, we have found our dream partner in Manchester. The company has over 80 years of experience with spinning very fine wool.

We have all production in England, Scotland, Sweden and Norway. All our textiles come to Norway. Here, textiles are further processed into scarves, shawls, etc.

Most of Norwegian production takes place on farms.