As an Australian lifestyle brand with strong storytelling targeted at appealing to local customers' desires to 'shop Australian', Country Road sought to find a way to confirm that the merino wool and cotton used in their products were being sourced from Australian farms.

As Australia does not have spinning facilities, all fibres must be shipped overseas for spinning, complicating the supply chain and increasing the difficulty in tracing materials from farm to final product. While the technology to fully trace this supply chain does exist, it relies on all parties maintaining the chain of information, which can be difficult for large companies with potentially convoluted supply chains. Therefore the company could think they know where they are sourcing their fibres from, but in reality, it's not proof of what is actually happening throughout their supply chain. 

Australian farming practices are often under contention, as concerns around water usage regarding cotton and animal welfare around wool have led some international companies to avoid Australian fibres. In order to confirm the practices of the farmers from whom they were sourcing their raw materials, Country Road needed to be able to verify their origins.

To solve this problem without requiring full, verifiable traceability throughout their supply chain to confirm fibre origin, Country Road partnered with Oritain to match the fibre 'fingerprint' of their fibres to those of the original farm.

Oritain offers a verification service to confirm the origin of the materials. This process involves:

1. Oritain is responsible for gathering audit samples from the final garments.

2. Through scientific analysis, Oritain creates a 'fingerprint' of the fibre origin.

3. Oritain then matches this against their databank of fibre profiles to confirm that it matches the provided source.

Through this solution, Country Road could verify the source of fibres at the end of production and connect this back to farmers who produced the raw material. This offered rich storytelling opportunities, as they could profile the farms from whom they sourced their raw material and help their customers feel confident that they were wearing Australian fibres.

However, this solution does not offer any traceability or transparency around the production processes, as it only connects the final product to the raw material source. As such, it cannot offer full transparency about the supply chain steps or practices, nor information about the chemical and mechanical treatments the fibre may undergo.

This solution offered a way for Country Road to provide a strong story around their sourcing of raw materials from Australian farmers and share the sustainable practices of these farms. It does allow them to take greater responsibility for the farming practices and identify the exact origins of their merino wool and cotton. However, using this technology, they have also avoided tracing their supply chain more deeply, and they may be overstating the level of traceability that this solution offers.

The Managing Director of Country Road (brand), Ella Roseby, is quoted on their website as saying;

"By partnering with Oritain, we're demonstrating true commitment to traceability. When you buy Verified Australian cotton or wool from Country Road, you have scientific proof of its authenticity."

While it may demonstrate their commitment, the company still has significant ways to go on reaching full traceability, as the steps between raw material and final product remain less clear.

Image sourced from Country Road website September 2021 (https://www.countryroad.com.au/our-world/land/verified-traceability-with-oritain/). Image ownership accredited to Country Road Group.