Outdoor brand Earth Sea Sky has started producing protective face masks, teaming up with air filter company Lanaco to provide safety gears for people to wear as the government starts easing up on COVID-19 restrictions.
Earth Sea Sky owner Jane Ellis said they have entered the new market of protective face masks using homegrown merino filters and when Lanaco put a call out for manufacturers capable of producing face masks using its merino HELIXTM filters, they were well placed to respond.
Ellis said she started researching protective face masks a few days into New Zealand’s COVID-19 Alert Level 4 coronavirus lockdown, when the country’s shortage of PPE gear hit the headlines.
CEO Nick Davenport they wanted to ramp up production of their air filter media to help address the need for PPE gear.
Davenport said the outdoor clothing manufacturer Earth Sea Sky was one of the first manufacturers to agree to help them with it.
“One of our staff members is from Hong Kong and was aware of a community mask programme there which had open sourced a design, but of course the main problem with making your own product is if a mask is just a piece of cloth it does not actually give you any protection,” Davenport said.
“Our filter technology provides a really, really low breathing resistance plus the ability to capture dangerous particles,” he said. “We saw an opportunity to help people in New Zealand by releasing as much filter media as we could … and a design for a mask that actually works.”
The idea was that a community manufacturing programme could provide an option for consumers who could not access products such as the N95.
“We put feelers out and Earth Sea Sky was one of the first manufacturers to pick it up. They’ve been fantastic to deal with – they totally get it.”
According to Ellis, they were contacted by Ryan Jennings from Buy New Zealand Made who said, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity’, and said it sounded like a good fit for their business.
“We design and make performance clothing, which protects people from the elements. A mask is just another protection layer.”
Two weeks after the call with Lanaco, Earth Sea Sky’s first Helix.iso™ Masks started rolling off the production line.
Jane says having the right fabric was key to maximising the masks’ performance.
The company is now selling packs of two masks (one to wash and one to wear) for $59.90 and single mask packs for $44.90.
Each pack contains seven filters, which is intended for a weeks’ supply in an environment where there is close contact with other people throughout the day, particularly those who may be vulnerable or sick.
