Development of N.E. Asia In-Market Collaboration and Executive Immersion

Organisation: Lanaco
Grant Number: M17004
Grant Amount: $100,000
Grant Type: Market Insight Grants

Lanaco Ltd is a developer and manufacturer of filters that utilizes New Zealand wool as its core technology based on this natural fibre platform. Lanaco has global ambitions to protect the health and well-being of everyone around the world through the uses of its innovative wool-based filters in every part of life.

Its headquarters in Auckland integrated together offices, labs and factory production under one roof accelerating commercialization to the market. It is a highly specialized centre of excellence and innovation of clean air technology able to customize filtration materials for both air and liquid applications utilizing coarse wool and fine wool.

The AGMARDT immersion grant funding enabled Lanaco to meet, establish and develop deeper relationships with a range of key influencers overseas, in particularly for Asia. Over 25 key influencers spanning across ‘from farm to market’ spectrum of stakeholders were covered, that included industrial designers, test-labs, regulators, distributors, investors, appliance manufacturers, technology suppliers and farm-owners. This included The National Quality Supervision and Testing Centre for Personal Protective Equipment in Beijing and antipollution face mask distributors in Xiamen city. During the immersion journey, a better understanding of the differences in social, business cultures and practices was gained, which initiated preparations on protection of the brand, technology-designs, manufacturing processes, trademarks, trade-secrets and IP as part of a disciplined approach for going global. This also included ‘on-farm’ level with the sheep genetics that produces the best wool attributes for air filters developed in a dedicated sheep breeding programme.

“AMGARDT’s support gave us the opportunity to be in front of overseas influencers and develop a meaningful relationship with them, and spark new ideas that develop into tangible projects and outcomes for our business and for New Zealand. We are now exploring new filter formulations into new product categories, such as medical materials and for ventilation, with influencers we met during the programme. The feedback from the market is positive, they are asking us to expand our product portfolio into their applications. This process was accelerated only because of support from partners like AGMARDT” Dr Samuel Yu, Head of Business & Marketing, Lanaco

We are grateful for the assistance the AGMARDT Grant provided. It has allowed Freshco to direct sales and manage our own destinies in each market enabling us to extract more value from the supply chain to the consumer.

John Mangan / Director, Freshco

AGMARDT supports and enables. Projects and people benefit from funding; New Zealand benefits from development of ideas, technologies, approaches and leadership. In particular, the trust facilitates information dissemination: AGMARDT is the catalyst for ripples that spread through the primary sector.

Dr Jacqueline Rowarth /

AGMARDT's support of Texus in the above process tangibly accelerated the development of the above essential activities and testing of market entry strategy, while also exposing Texus management to cutting-edge thought leadership around market shaping and the levers that can be applied to scope and facilitate such shaping.

Nick Davenport / CEO, Texus Fibre Industry Leader Scholarship Winner

The support from AGMARDT has enabled us to gain greater insights into farmer behaviour across all sectors and which will assist accelerated uptake of the livestock exchange and enhance market opportunities for all farmers.

Jason Roebuck / Managing Director, Stock-X Limited