Fact Sheet: Icebreaker Baacode

• Icebreaker was founded in 1994 in New Zealand, inventing the natural and technical outdoor merino apparel category. Icebreaker developed a layering system based on the knowledge that the pure merino wool it was sourcing was created by nature to keep an animal alive in the mountains.



• Icebreaker Baacode is a revolutionary new traceability program that enables customers to trace their pure merino garments through every step of the production process, starting with the sheep stations in the Southern Alps of New Zealand from where their merino wool came from.



• Through Baacode, Icebreaker is inviting customers to find out more about its sustainable and ethical practices throughout its entire supply chain, including the factories that knit, dye, finish, cut, manufacture and ship its products.



• Starting in August 2008, Icebreaker garments will have their own unique Baacode on the internal label inside their garments. A swingtag tells customers how to enter their individual Baacode on Icebreaker.com/baacode, which takes them to one of a group of sheep stations from where the merino fiber in the garment came and interviews with the farmers and the living conditions of the sheep (translations not provided for the bleating). They can then trace the merino fibre in their garments through the supply chain.



• It takes the wool from one merino sheep to make approximately five Icebreaker garments.



• Icebreaker pure merino is sourced from more than 120 sheep stations -- and over 1 million sheep -- throughout the Southern Alps of New Zealand.



• Icebreaker is an ecological clothing system that is both natural and technical. It is built from the pure superfine wool of a merino - a mountain sheep that lives in the Southern Alps at up to 6,000 feet (1,828 metres). The merino's fine wool is its armour against this environment -- from the scorching summers to the freezing winters.



• Icebreaker merino is lightweight, strong and silky soft. There is no prickle like regular wool, the insulation is very high, and each fibre breathes.



• In the age of odor-harboring synthetic fabrics such as polypropylene or polyester -- created from petroleum -- Icebreaker merino is a made from a renewable protein-based fibre, keratin, and a sustainable source. Synthetic fibre can't breathe (only the fabric), and with Icebreaker, odour isn't a problem.

About Icebreaker