Where Does Your Wool Come From?

Avocado's certified organic wool is sourced from the Himalayan foothills of northern India — Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand — through our partnership with Agrestal Organic Living, in which Avocado holds a minority ownership stake. More than 325,500 sheep graze across 38,000+ hectares of managed Himalayan grassland and wild harvest land, tended by farming families whose livelihoods and way of life are inseparable from the health of the land they manage.

Our primary wool sourcing operation is in Himachal Pradesh, where more than 520 farming families manage approximately 247,600 sheep across 29,000+ hectares of rotationally grazed Himalayan grassland. The flocks are sheared twice annually, following the dual-season transhumance model — seasonal migration of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures — that has defined Himalayan pastoralism for generations. These are not commercial feedlot operations. The sheep travel routes their flocks have traveled for centuries, managed by families for whom this is not a supply chain relationship but a generations-old way of life.

The Himachal Pradesh operation produces approximately 651 metric tonnes of raw wool per year. The majority of the flock — approximately 224,800 sheep across three certified Internal Control System (ICS) units — already holds full certified organic status under the Canada Organic Regime (COR), a standard recognized as equivalent to USDA organic requirements under the U.S.–Canada Organic Equivalency Arrangement. The remaining approximately 24,400 animals are in conversion and scheduled to achieve full organic certification in October 2026. We believe this is the first wool operation in the livestock production category to receive a COR certificate for sheep fleece wool.

In 2025, Agrestal expanded into Uttarakhand, a neighboring state, taking over the management of a new project encompassing approximately 77,900 sheep across 9,150 hectares of wild-harvest area. This project is currently in conversion status under COR. Combined with the Himachal Pradesh operations, Avocado's wool-sourcing partnership now spans two states, more than 325,500 sheep, and more than 38,000 hectares of managed and wild-harvest land.

Each Internal Control System unit operates with its own dedicated office, veterinarians, and pharmacists — infrastructure managed and fully funded by Agrestal, even though the projects are technically farmer-owned. This ensures consistent animal welfare, health monitoring, and traceability across every flock in the program. It distinguishes our supply chain from brands that purchase wool on the open market without operational accountability at the farm level.

The Responsible Wool Standard (RWS, license CU 1126022) independently audits our sourcing for progressive land management and the Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare. The wool is processed in our co-owned GOTS-certified facility in northern India — not a third-party processor — under the same material and labor standards that govern our manufacturing facilities.

The rotational grazing practices across our managed Himalayan pastures in Himachal Pradesh are estimated to sequester approximately 32,000 tCO₂e annually — approaching nearly twice Avocado's total verified annual emissions — based on a conservative literature-based estimate. Baseline soil carbon sampling and long-term monitoring protocols are in progress. As we establish baseline data for the Uttarakhand wild harvest area, we expect to report additional sequestration estimates in future disclosures.

For more on how wool functions in the mattress — temperature regulation, moisture management, and natural flame resistance — see Does Wool Sleep Hot? Why Organic Wool Is the Best Natural Temperature Regulator for Mattresses.

For more on how the wool is cleaned and processed, see How Do You Wash Your Raw Wool?