The European Market

Up until twenty years ago alpacas only existed in zoos. Even though there were continual attempts from Europeans and also Australians to import Alpacas from South America for breeding purposes, with the exception of the Englishman the Sir Titus Salt who imported around 1850 Alpacas to England, nobody succeeded up until twenty years ago. It has only been since 1984 that Chile granted permission for the export of alpacas, and Peru only in 1991. Even today it is not easy to import Huacaya and above all Suri Alpacas. Countries such as Chile and Bolivia have restrictions and quarantine regulations, which need to be taken into account, thus naturally making imports very expensive and time-consuming.

A professional market for alpacas already exists in the USA, Canada and Australia which has been founded for a longer period of time. There, a high-quality basic female fetches between US$ 15,000 - 25,000. Even though Europe has been involved in the breeding of Alpacas for 15 - 20 years, it was mostly dominated by hobby breeders, who often held onto their female animals which eventuated in a very tentative market developing.

Meanwhile that has changed: Europe is coming along strongly. The European market is a fantastic future market, but it is still seen almost as an insider tip. There are continually more and more people who are absolutely convinced of the European Alpaca market and continue to invest into these noble animals. New alpaca breeders are establishing themselves in almost every European country each and every single year. Returns on investment from 20% to 70% can also be obtained from breeding these animals in Europe. Above all, England is strongly advancing: The English breeders have set their goal to breed the best Alpacas with the highest quality wool in the world. Due to the long gestation period (11 - 11.5 months) as well the relative difficultly in importing Alpacas, the Alpaca population is only able to increase relatively slowly. The outcome being that the market value will remain for many years to come, thus making the "Bust and Boom" development of the market very improbable.

The market in other countries has shown that there is a very continuous and stable upward development of the average alpaca prices with the rising quality of the animals. Through the continuous improvement of the breed animals, which is also recognised in Europe, a constant rise of the market price for high-quality breed animals should occur. But even with the current price level alpaca breeding is economically interesting. In the USA some family fathers give Alpacas in place of shares to their children or grandchildren. Of course shares are also available for purchase, but increasingly more people see the opportunity in Alpacas, by living in the country and generating a value with an investment in Alpacas.