Makers of the world’s finest carpets, tailors of the world’s fanciest suits … they all beat a trail to New Zealand to source the world’s best wool. Now, so can anyone else around the world. From its base in Christchurch in New Zealand’s South Island, CRONZ — Carpets and Rugs of New Zealand — custom-makes rugs and carpets from pure New Zealand wool for discerning buyers throughout the world.

CRONZ is a proud family-owned and operated business. Owners John and Helen Wyma manage the business, and their daughters Emma and Anneka are in key marketing roles. The Wyma family story is integral to any accounting of how CRONZ came to be what it is today.

John and Helen Wyma were born and bred in the southern part of New Zealand where wool — the versatile crossbreds and, in the higher country, the majestic Merino — has always been a central focus on farms. John and Helen are from farming families. Wool is in their DNA. This is why you will find the CRONZ rug collections, The Southern Collection and The Alpine Collection, and the ranges within them named so evocatively of southern New Zealand: Aparima, Hokonui, Nightcaps, Kingston, Glenorchy, Ohau and Milford among them.

John was a farmer with what they call “an engineering bent”. Some farmers like working with stock; some farmers like working on their tractors; and some farmers, like John Wyma, are inexorably drawn to the workshop where wondrous things can be wrought with a welder and a hammer. This bent eventually saw John and Helen sell the family farm in Southland and move to an engineering business in Canterbury. John developed a world-beating system for washing fresh vegetables; interests associated with the produce industry subsequently acquired the operation.