This all-natural hack can change how you hike or run — courtesy of a tiny Utah business

Newlyweds Matt and Kathryn Disney were hiking during their honeymoon in New Zealand — and battling painful blisters — when their guides suggested wrapping their sore feet in loose wool. Matt Disney wasn’t buying it.

“I was just like, if it’s so great, why haven’t we seen this in the U.S.?” Disney recalled.

But by day three, in pain and with Kathryn urging him to try it, Disney wove a strand around his toes and other problem spots. The relief, he said, “was literally one of those light bulb moments … ‘Oh my goodness, they weren’t kidding.’”

That trail-side epiphany about what’s known as hiker’s wool in New Zealand led him to launch Wūru Wool, a Utah-based company now turning that same lanolin-rich fiber into blister-preventing packs and high-performance hiking apparel.

After bringing the hiker’s wool concept home in 2018, Disney had quickly learned that distributors “didn’t really want to work with a company that only sold one product.”

He expanded into apparel, using wool from New Zealand and Australia. And in 2024, he brought production entirely in-house at a Murray facility, where every piece of Wūru gear is now crafted locally.

That effort has not gone unnoticed: Wūru was one of the companies honored in the 2025 Utah Innovation Awards, recognized for its small-batch processes that reduce waste and allow for production that’s dictated by consumer demand.

‘We can do this’

Inside a modest manufacturing space just outside Salt Lake City, the steady hum of sewing machines now fills the air, threading between stacks of fabric and spools of imported Merino wool.

Disney, who has a business background in distributing medical and performance products for athletes, said, “owning a bunch of sewing machines is the last thing I ever expected.”

Violeta Torres, one of the first seamstresses who joined the company in 2022, helped him learn how to make their apparel, and “we just figured it out together,” Disney said.

Torres, a lifelong seamstress, said she was pleasantly surprised by the high quality of the fabric at Wūru. She had to adjust to a slower, more deliberate pace of sewing, she said, that’s focused on craftsmanship over speed.

“I’m really happy to see how it’s growing,” Torres said about the company. “When we started it was a little space with three machines. Now, I see a big difference.”

Staffers cut the wool into precise shapes and sizes, and seamstresses move each piece through a series of specialized industrial sewing machines, stitching the clothing step by step until it’s complete.

Once finished, the gear is packaged and sold either through Wūru’s website or via partnering distributors like Amazon and Liberty Mountain, Disney said.

Perfecting this workflow, Disney said, was a “snowball moment of like, okay, we can do this.”

Creating Wūru Wool

The Disneys were hiking the Milford Track in Fiordland National Park — a 33-mile route that receives rain nearly 200 days a year — when they first encountered the lanolin-rich Merino fibers. Even the toughest calluses, Disney said, offered little protection on the damp terrain.

“One of the couples we were with, they were actually kiwis [slang for locals, inspired by the country’s native flightless bird] and happened to be best friends with one of the largest wool exporters in New Zealand,” Disney said. “And so while we’re flipping away at miles we started talking about business opportunities.”

Before long, 700 kilograms of New Zealand wool was delivered to his doorstep and he had to decide: “This is either going to take up a lot of space in our garage, or you’re going to do something with it,” he said.

He decided to call the company Wūru Wool — wūru meaning “wool” in Māori, the language of the Indigenous Māori people of New Zealand.

While New Zealanders have used loose wool for decades to reduce soreness, minimize blisters, regulate temperature and keep feet dry, Disney said, his company was the first to introduce the single-use product to the U.S. market.

Each package provides enough Wūru for about 20 to 30 applications, according to the company’s website.

“You just take off a little piece, and then you put it between your skin and your sock, and it just naturally knits into into your sock and stays in place,” Disney explained. “There’s no taping involved, so there’s no adhesive left around which will end up attracting dirt and things like that. If it gets wet, it still works just the same.”

‘Straw that broke the camel’s back’

The decision to start manufacturing apparel in the Salt Lake Valley came after years of trial and error. Disney said he launched the business with little knowledge of wool — or the apparel industry — and admits he didn’t fully know what he was getting into.

When he moved into apparel, items were initially manufactured in Los Angeles, with fabric sourced from overseas, he said.

It wasn’t ideal. He couldn’t afford the high minimum order quantities required for overseas manufacturing, and the U.S. facilities he tried lacked the attention to detail he wanted for his products.

Frustrated, Disney began looking for ways to bring production closer to home. Each order seemed to face months of delays, and “the straw that broke the camel’s back” came when his entire batch of base layers for the 2021–2022 ski season arrived after the snow was gone — in May 2022.

He first partnered with a facility in Tremonton but ultimately decided to open his own factory closer to home. The small factory outside the capital city may not be Wūru Wool’s permanent home, Disney said, but he’s committed to keeping production in the Salt Lake Valley.

Nestled near miles of trails and just minutes from hikes in the Wasatch Mountains or along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, the Salt Lake Valley manufacturing site keeps Wūru close to the outdoor adventure that inspired it, he said.

“Often you hear people talk about, [manufacturing] can’t be done in the U.S.,” Disney said. “That’s a cop-out. It can be done. People are just choosing not to, and that’s okay — but we’re showing that it can be done.”

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