I think my adventurous spirit brought me to Peru, I came here from my native Switzerland, back in 1950. I am an accountant by profession, this allowed me to learn about various business activities in Arequipa, a city in the South of Peru, where I settled down, raised a beautiful family and discovered the world of the alpaca, to which I still belong to.

Today, a world concerned about the environment and its sustainability has the opportunity to know and understand the importance of alpaca in this process. I want to present the WHY ALPACA concept, which will allow many people to understand the contribution of the Alpaca Value Chain to the environment and its sustainability.

We have come a long way. We founded PAC with Mr. Hugo Corzo in 1957 when we began the marketing of alpaca fibre in the international market. A few years later, we defined our business vision: Grow forward by adding value to the alpaca fibre and generating many jobs. In 1964, Inca Tops was created for the manufacture of alpaca tops and yarns. At the beginning of the 80’s, Condor Tips was founded, producing high quality alpaca fibre fabrics and two years later Tumi Knits was founded to produce sweaters, mainly made of alpaca. Later, in 1996, it was decided to merge both companies and Incalpaca was born.

A milestone in our history was the participation in the protection and recovery of the vicuña through the International Vicuña Consortium founded in 1994, together with two of the most prestigious Italian textile firms.
Today we are the only Peruvian company that manufactures a variety of garments made of Vicuña, fully processed in our facilities with high quality standards.

The quality of our products was recognized internationally, so we decided to venture into the retail business. Our Alpaca 111 chain of stores was born in 1987, the first store of alpaca products in Peru. Later, in 2007, it became KUNA, the most important chain of alpaca products at an international level. We currently have more than 35 stores in Peru and Chile, and are in the process of franchising the brand globally and entering into e-commerce.

We wish to mention our new brand ANDEAN, with which we offer alpaca products oriented to younger markets, and AMANO, premium Vicuña and Royal Alpaca yarns for hand knitting.

Pacomarca, our experimental farm with more than 2,500 alpacas located in the Puno Region, the most important alpaca-producing zone in the world at 4,100 m.a.s.l., deserves special attention.

For more than 15 years we have been recording the characteristics of our herds and their fibre. Today we have a database of more than 7 million records, through which, and with the support of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, we are obtaining important findings.

We were important pioneers in the transfer of embryos; we also developed shearing systems and qualityoriented purchasing policies, seeking to benefit alpaca breeders and the whole value chain. In a decade, we increased the percentage of baby alpaca in the fleeces acquired from producers from 12% to more than 23%, and introduced the Royal Alpaca quality of 18.50 microns.

Through Pacomarca, we have two great objectives which will benefit all breeders:

1. To increase the quantity of Royal Alpaca and introduce to the market the Imperial Alpaca quality of 16 microns.

2. Recovery the production of colour alpaca, especially black. 50 years ago the production colour fibre was 60 to 70 %, today is no more than 25%.

I would like to thank the team of people from the Technical and Commercial areas of the Grupo Inca who participated in the preparation of this valuable document: WHY ALPACA, which seeks to support and promote a unique tribe of people who care about the environment and its sustainability and know that Alpaca is a lifestyle.

Finally, I want to conclude by reminding you to always put passion into your life. Francis O. Patthey