Sonoma Wool Company
As you localize your food, be sure to localize your fiber as well! Natural, locally sourced fiber, such as wool, has many of the same remarkable benefits of locally grown food: higher quality, more ecologically responsible, and healthier! In this Member Spotlight, we chat with Amy Chesnut, founder and owner of Sonoma Wool Company, during a visit with one of her major wool suppliers, fellow Farm Trails member Joe Pozzi of Pozzi Ranch in Valley Ford. Read on to learn about her inspiration, ethos, and hopes for this often-overlooked but important piece of Sonoma County agriculture.
Sonoma Wool Company: sonomawoolcompany.com
Farm Trails member since 2014
How did you start your business?
It all started with a love of the land, and all that it provides — food, fiber, clean water, clean air, and wildlife habitat, and an aversion to non-natural, synthetic products. I had a 30-year career in land conservation, where I worked with many farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners to protect the natural and working lands throughout Sonoma County. And before the Internet, in the 1980s, you would find me checking out books in the library about how to make natural and nontoxic cleaners for the home. I met Joe Pozzi in 2009, and, if you know Joe, a fourth-generation rancher, his passion for ranching, sheep, cattle, and wool is infectious. Since the 1990s Joe had been working with local ranchers to increase the value of their wool through cleaning and skirting prior to baling, and he gathered it, scoured it, and sold it to natural bedding manufacturers throughout the United States. Understanding the unique qualities of wool, it occurred to me that there were many other uses for it. I bought a cottage-industry-sized felting loom from Kentucky, had it shipped to the little red barn on Joe’s ranch, and started to experiment with Joe’s wool. That’s where I came up with our signature product — the Wool Dish Drying Mat. In 2013, I bought a booth space at the National Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa, and Sonoma Wool Company was up and running.
Joe raises grass-fed lamb and cattle on his ranch in Valley Ford. He and his growers sell his grass-fed lamb under the Pozzi Ranch Lamb label exclusively at Whole Foods stores throughout Northern California. Joe’s life has been as a staunch and outgoing advocate for agriculture and thoughtful common-sense approaches to caring for the land. He has been the manager and part of the Gold Ridge Resource Conservation District since the mid-1990s, held many board positions at the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, regularly participates in the California Wool Growers, and is the current Vice President of the Board of Directors of the American Sheep Industry, based in Denver. Joe’s daughter, Alex, lives in Santa Rosa, and helps Joe run Pozzi Ranch Lamb.
What is the history of your business?
Sonoma Wool Company began in 2013 in a little red barn on the Joe Pozzi Ranch in Valley Ford. We make 100% wool products for the home, including felted products and bedding. In 2016, to keep up with demand for our products, we moved some production to the East Coast, where some of the last remaining wool mills in the United States are located. In 2019, my son Sawyer joined the company to run the daily operations. Today, we are a 13-year-old, bicoastal, ecommerce company, with ranching operations in Sonoma County, a warehouse in Massachusetts, and wool traveling around the country to be scoured, carded, felted, and sewn into bedding products.
What do you do?
Sonoma Wool Company makes practical wool products for the home. Our products are 100% natural – no dyes or chemicals are used in the processing, and, with the exception of our linen sleeves, our products are made entirely in the United States. Flax for fiber is not grown in abundance here in the United States, so we source our linen sleeves and ironing board covers from India. We use the coarse wool from the sheep in Sonoma County and elsewhere in the United States, to make our felted products and bedding. Our signature product is the Wool Dish Drying Mat, but I also created wool sponges, ironing board pads, and cat mats, to name a few other items. We offer mattress toppers, comforters, and pillows because wool is the ideal fiber to sleep in, on, and under! Quilters and crafters also love our wool batting because of the loft and wool’s insulating qualities.
What do you find most rewarding about your work?
Our tagline is, “Re-Discover the Wonders of Wool,” and the most rewarding part of our work is seeing how people positively respond to using wool in their homes. We offer an alternative to synthetics, and chemically derived products to help people surround themselves with products made from all-natural fibers. Wool has so many unique qualities, such that no manmade material can come close to providing all of the benefits of wool. We say, “re-discover,” because we are all just one or two generations from a time when natural fibers were what we relied upon for our clothing and home goods. When people have that “a-ha” moment of “re-discovering” wool, that is the moment we feel good — knowing that a person’s home or bed will be a bit more safe, comfortable, and natural.
What do you value about being a Farm Trails member?
Farm Trails is a wonderfully unique organization that creates special opportunities for people to understand what it is like to work and live in an agricultural community, and to connect the dots about where our food and natural fibers come from. This message is so important for the long-term viability of farming and ranching, and for the production of local food and fiber for so many people to enjoy.
What are your hopes for the future?
The average age of a farmer/rancher is in the 50s, if not the 60s. My hope is that the next generation of farmers and ranchers will be able to carry on the lifestyle and tradition of food and fiber production. Land conservation is a part of it — having a solid land base of working lands. But, obviously, you need people to make it happen. And you need economic viability. The opportunities will come along. And I know there will be young people with the passion and desire to carry it forward.
What advice would you give to someone starting out in your line of business?
Follow your instincts. There will be plenty of people trying to give you advice, sometimes asking you to pay for it. Some of it may be good, but much of it you probably already know at some level. Trust yourself. Trust what speaks to you. Follow your passion. And don’t rush it. Let it grow slowly and organically, so you can thoughtfully tend it. As you would a garden.
Photos courtesy of Emily Marsden and Sonoma Wool Company