If Fulling Mill dealt in goods such as coffee or bananas they could proudly brandish a Fair Trade sticker on all their products. Instead, because the company’s raw goods focus around masses of fur, feathers, thread, tinsel and hooks, the superb working conditions in its Kenyan factory are not so well documented or recognised.
Barry Unwin, owner and chairman of Fulling Mill, is not the only manufacturer of flies to be based in Africa, but his organisation is the best at not only producing the finest finished article but also at looking after and rewarding the 250 skilled and loyal fly dressers and other staff who operate from the company’s state-of-the-art factory. This still goes under its original name of Unwin and Sons, and is situated in the tea-growing highland to the west of the Rift Valley at a town called Kericho.
The premises has dedicated stores, packing and special finishing areas alongside comfortable and well-lit bays where the highly trained workforce can hand tie flies to cater for a fly fisherman’s every need.
During the company’s near 40-year history, keeping its workforce content has always been a major priority, with each employee earning around five times the average wage for Kenya. They are also entitled to belong to a union, no children are employed (with 18 being the minimum age for recruitment), they are handed basic medical care, a housing allowance, generous maternity leave and annual holidays.
Barry told TTW: “Over the course of my lengthy career in this industry I have looked into partnerships in many different countries and every one of these potential deals has fallen down because of the way the labour force was treated. I have seen young girls being hit by their supervisors because they could not tie a particular fly, skilled people remaining unpaid and living in abject poverty as a result and I have been into so-called factories that are little more than mud huts crammed with children working
16 hours a day.
“Obviously we run a business to make a profit but it needs to be done correctly. We could easily make our flies a lot cheaper elsewhere and pay half the rate in other countries, but my philosophy is that everyone should get a fair deal. I feel we can see the reward for the way we operate in our finished products because a happy workforce produces superior goods.
“Our workers are all fully trained in-house and they obviously like the way we operate because our turnover of staff is very low. The manager of the factory has been with us for more than 25 years and his wife is one of our top fly dressers. We like to promote from within where possible.”
While the production plant is based in Kenya, the headquarters for Fulling Mill are at Salfords in Surrey, England. the company also has a wholly owned subsidiary company in New Hampshire, USA, which handles all fly sales for its major American customers. It means American fly fishers – who use a lot of patterns not so popular with UK anglers – can be assured of being handed the exact fish-catching flies that they have the most confidence in.
Apart from the flies found in the company’s comprehensive catalogue, Fulling Mill also custom ties a vast amount of patterns for anglers worldwide, which are mostly sold under various brand names.
The amount of flies tied annually is mind-boggling, with between four and a half and five million coming off the production line annually, destined for markets all over the world, with the lion’s share going to Europe and the USA where top anglers appreciate the sheer quality of the goods available to them.
Fulling Mill estimates to have around 20,000 different ‘recipes’ for flies at its factory – often with only minor differences in each – and the company ties around half of them in a variety of sizes each year. Trout flies are easily the largest sellers but there are thousands of patterns of flies that lend themselves to other aspects of fly fishing. Demand for salmon flies and saltwater flies is also high and in recent years there has been a significant growth in pike flies and its ‘toothy critter’ range.
While their vast array of flies are tied to imitate insect life in a variety of stages, fish or shrimps, one of the strangest to be fixed in a vice is made to resemble a bit of seaweed to fool the vegetarian milk fish found in the Indian Ocean.
Barry says: “If there is fly fishing in a country the chances are we supply flies to that nation in one capacity or another. Fly designs and ideas come from multiple sources – magazines, the internet, friends and guides as well as our in-house team of experts. We work very closely with a number of top anglers worldwide who submit their patterns to us for inclusion into our range.
“Anyone who requests a custom pattern is assured that it will be kept exclusively for them. More often than not we are able to help our customers with their designs and our knowledge of hooks and materials means that we can often make big improvements to the original pattern.”
‘Have rod will travel’ is one of Barry’s mottos these days, for during globetrotting ‘business meetings’ he likes to give his products a test run in each foreign location. He recently enjoyed some stunning brown trout action in Tasmania with fish originally introduced from Scotland’s famous Loch Leven.
And on visits to his American premises he feels it’s vitally import to give his flies a swim and discover if they are to the liking of the Delaware trout, or if the stripers of Maine home in on his larger offerings. He once caught an oxeye tarpon off the coast of Kenya which was estimated at almost 10lb – well above the world record – only for one of the guides to take it home and eat it before it could be officially verified.
Barry adds: “People are always offering to carry my bags but I can cope with things on my own. It’s important to fish and all of us involved in product development within the company are fly-tying experts and fishing-tackle nuts. Economics really isn’t our forte but what we have noticed over the decades – and coping with several recessions – is that good-quality products at fair prices always find a market.
“Our mantra at Fulling Mill is that we never sell anything that we wouldn’t be happy using ourselves and it has served us well. Our sales have continued to grow every year, we have employed more people in the UK, the USA and at our factory and we see great opportunities ahead of us.”
Sounds like Fulling Mill can look forward to a fair trade – both in and out of the factory.
Meet the team:
WILL LANDALE has this month taken over as group managing director. He is an experienced businessman but more importantly an ardent fly fisher who has been longing to break into the tackle industry.
JOHN WOLSTENHOLME, mad keen fisherman and outdoor enthusiast with many years on the tackle industry, is sales and marketing director, a great asset to the company, and is known and liked throughout the industry.
RAY HICKEY is a chartered accountant with a passion for angling, and has been the company’s full-time financial director and chief operating officer for the past 17 years.
STEVE CAREW, one of the world’s best and most inventive fly dressers with a passion for angling, joined the company 12 years ago right out of college. As technical manager he is in his ‘dream job’.