Many associate alpaca wool with the colorful hats worn by farmers in the Peruvian Andes;

they became popular in Europe in the 1970s because they kept your ears so nice and warm and also fitted in so well with the then burgeoning eco-friendly movement.

Anyone who wore the hats as a child may still remember the slightly scratchy wool.

Otherwise, alpaca didn't get any real attention in this country, because Peruvian wool was always overshadowed by noble cashmere, which has become more and more affordable in recent years.

The fur of the animals I particularly dense

Anke Schipp

Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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When Jannik Weich first went to Peru as an exchange student, he was 16 years old and wasn't particularly interested in alpaca animals and what was made of their wool.

Cheap goods were sold to tourists on the markets in Lima, which usually contained only a small proportion of real alpaca wool.

Weich first got an idea of ​​how the fur actually feels when, after graduating from high school, he traveled the country again and touched the animals with their characteristic necks on the alpaca farms, which are often several thousand meters high in the Andes.

"Although the fur was wet and a little matted from the moisture, it felt dense and soft," says the man from Frankfurt.

At the time, he couldn't get the special thing about alpaca fur out of his mind.

But it was only after studying business administration that he picked up the thread again - when he was looking for a business idea together with fellow student David Kuttschrütter.

Why not found a start-up that imports alpaca skins and knitwear made from alpaca wool to Europe?

However, it still took some time from the business idea in 2017 to implementation.

The two founders flew to Peru several times, visited alpaca farms, which were often only accessible on foot, talked to suppliers, tanneries and knitters in order to end up with a high-quality product that they wanted to bring to the German market.

Alpacas are bred solely for their wool

Similar to sheep, the alpacas, which in contrast to the llamas, which are pack animals, are bred exclusively for their wool, are shorn once a year to prevent heat build-up under the fur in summer.

The yarn that is used to make sweaters and other knitwear is obtained from the wool.

Weich and Kuttschrütter also paid attention to the furs of the animals, which they now sell in addition to the knitwear in their own shop in Frankfurt, in selected interior design shops and in an online shop.

According to Weich, the special thing about alpaca fibers is their thermal properties.

Both the fur and the wool that is obtained from the shearing warms significantly better than sheepskin and wool, as it is an animal that has adapted to the cold temperatures over centuries.

The fibers are hollow on the inside and can thus store heat.

That's why the hot water bottle, which is covered with alpaca fur, is still warm the next morning if it was filled with hot water the night before.

The silky shiny fur is tanned and washed several times in Peru and then dried in the sun.

"There are a total of around 16 production steps so that the fur looks the way we sell it here," says Kuttschrütter.

The majority of the skins come from the alpaca species Huacaya, which, in contrast to the Suris, has a rather short-piled fur.

The husbandry of alpacas is considered sustainable

Compared to sheep's wool, alpaca wool is warmer, finer and has no wool fat content and can therefore also be worn by people with wool allergies, just like the scarves that the two entrepreneurs have Peruvian designers dye in natural tones.

They also offer custom-made fur blankets and carpets, which they sell to owners of alpine chalets, for example.

However, the hot-water bottles, pillows and cuddly toys made from alpaca fur are among the bestsellers.

It is important to Weich that the animals whose skins they import to Germany are not killed.

"We only buy the skins of alpacas that die because of their age," says Weich.

"That was crucial, otherwise we would not have implemented the project." In general, keeping alpacas is considered sustainable because the pastureland can continue to be used.

Unlike cashmere goats, the animals only pluck the grass so that the soil is not destroyed.

But goats eat the grass down to the roots;

the result is progressive devastation of the landscape.

Alpacas are also ecologically soft.