Breeders find a market for alpacas

LEADER OF THE PAC: Tim Viverous sorts alpaca fiber at New England Alpaca Fiber Pool in Fall River. The 10,000-square-foot facility processes about 80,000 pounds of alpaca fiber each year. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
LEADER OF THE PAC: Tim Viverous sorts alpaca fiber at New England Alpaca Fiber Pool in Fall River. The 10,000-square-foot facility processes about 80,000 pounds of alpaca fiber each year. / PBN PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

The 30,000 pounds of alpaca fiber usually stacked in large bales at the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool in Fall River arrive from farms in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other states in New England, the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.
The 10,000-square-foot facility processes about 80,000 pounds of alpaca fiber a year. The fiber is graded, finished, then sent out to be manufactured into gloves, scarves, socks and other items and returned for inspection, warehousing and distribution.
“We do the finishing. The fiber has to be finished in a very specific way,” said Christopher Riley, president of New England Alpaca Fiber Pool. “Alpaca doesn’t finish like other textiles.”
The alpaca industry locally is small and informal, with an estimated dozen breeders in Rhode Island, many of whom hold down other jobs, and others who keep the animals as pets.
New England Alpaca Fiber Pool is the sole alpaca manufacturer in the U.S. that uses only 100 percent American-raised fiber and in its line of 17 items manufactured in specialized processes at several East Coast mills, said Riley.
“There’s an awareness now of ‘made in America’ and buying local and all-natural products and those are very strong indicators for us,” said Riley. “Our growth over the past five years has been 30-40 percent every year and we expect that to continue.”
In addition to raw fiber that’s shipped in, the company makes collections at alpaca shows across the U.S., including upcoming shows in Lebanon, Mo., Essex Junction, Vt., Syracuse, N.Y. and Richmond, Va., according to its website.
The business model is based on fiber credits. The value of the raw fiber goes into a “fiber bank” and the farmer buys finished goods back at a modest price. The best-selling alpaca product, by far, is socks, said Riley.
“For a dozen pairs of socks, for example, a farmer sends 5 pounds of fiber and pays an $82.50 manufacturing fee,” said Riley. “Then the farmer purchases a dozen pairs of socks for about $6.88 a pair, and they retail for about $18 a pair.”
Built into the business model is an expansive distribution network. The Fall River company works with 1,600 farmers, who sell the finished products at farm stores, farmers markets and other outlets across the country. “That gives us a very broad and diverse reach,” said Riley. That broad reach is managed by Riley and his wife, Shelley, who worked in marketing and health care and is vice president of the privately held company.
After raising golden retrievers, the Rileys moved into livestock in 1995, starting with five alpacas at their 18-acre farm in Westport, Mass.
The company was founded in 1997 by three New England alpaca breeders. The Rileys became interested in it in 2002 and purchased the controlling interest in 2004. The business has five full-time and two part-time employees.
Running a business was not new to Riley, who is a software engineer, had his own software companies and still owns part of a software security company.
The Rileys now have both feet in the alpaca business. In addition to the company, they own a farm with 80 alpacas.
“It’s all part of having a diverse lifestyle,” said Riley. “When you work in something like computer science, you tend to have your head in the ‘cloud.’ It’s important to get out of the cloud and this keeps you grounded.”
It’s a similar engineering and alpaca lifestyle for Jeff Groene, who works at a manufacturing facility in East Providence, and his partner, Sonya Hanson, also an engineer.
During their seven years in the alpaca business at their 4-acre Ice Pond Farm in Fiskeville, a village in Cranston, they’ve owned 20 alpacas at one point. They are now down to 12, with two on the way.
They got interested in alpacas the way many people do when they first see the unusual, docile animals that are related to llamas and camels.
“We started because we saw some alpacas at a festival and Sonya had never seen them before,” said Groene. “She said, ‘I want one.’ ”
Focusing on breeding for quality fiber, Groene said it’s a challenging but interesting venture because the quality can improve with each breeding.
“There’s so much potential for improvement and we really don’t know yet how good this fiber can get,” said Groene. While there’s no official count of alpaca breeders in Rhode Island, Groene estimates about dozen breeders in the state and several others who keep alpaca for what he called “yard ornaments.”
Groene’s informal categorization of alpaca owners breaks down into those who have the animals as pets, those who keep them as a cottage industry, some who work to improve the breeding stock, or for competition, which often coincides with breeding.
At the 10-acre Glen Ridge Farm in Portsmouth, where fields slope down to the mouth of the Sakonnet River, Kevin Tarsagian and his wife, Ann Fiore Tarsagian, have about 60 alpacas on the property and co-own about 90 more used for breeding on other properties. They have three full-time and two part-time employees.
They have been raising alpacas for 15 years and like other alpaca owners in Rhode Island, it started as a second business.
Kevin Tarsagian is a mechanic who had a shop in Middletown and who has a real estate management company. Ann Tarsagian worked with architectural restoration and antiques.
Ann has a horse, they wanted a farm and caring for alpacas turned out to be a workable business.
“It was a passion and a business. It went hand-in-hand,” she said. “Both of us really enjoy animals and we wanted something that would also put food on the table.”
The value of alpacas varies greatly, with some used for fiber ranging from $250 to $5,000,” she said. “Breeding stock can go up to $15,000, and some studs go for six figures.”
The Tarsagians focus primarily on breeding and as their herd grew, so did their ability to depend on their alpaca business for financial stability.
Acknowledging the initial investment to purchase the farm, the returns came more quickly than other businesses, she said.
“In some businesses you might not see a profit for five years. Once we started selling alpacas, we had buyers,” she said. “We started seeing a profit after three or four years, and putting it back into the farm.
“It’s a very real industry and seems to follow the trend in the stock market,” she said. “If it were a fad, it wouldn’t be improving now.” •

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