Wuggs is an off-shoot of Lenah Game Meats, which was established in 1992 by John & Katrina Kelly and Sally Bruen. Lenah’s vision was to develop an industry based on the animals which belong on our land and to which our land is adapted.

Wuggs are wallaby fur ugg boots made from the leather by-product of wallaby meat production by Lenah Game Meats. ‘Lenah’ is an Aboriginal word for wallaby and they harvest Tasmanian wallabies under strict government control to supply meat for human consumption to supermarkets and restaurants across the country. By creating wuggs and other homewares from wallaby fur, they make sure they use the entire animal and reduce waste.

Sustainable

Sustainability is central to everything Wuggs do. Wallaby skins are a by-product of meat production and seek to utilise the wallaby resource responsibly. Every aspect of their harvest and production is tightly controlled by the government to ensure it’s sustainable and humane.

100% Australian made

When Wuggs began their journey, they were adamant that their Wuggs be made in Australia. This provides local jobs, and ensures a local attention to detail. Wuggs are made to the same size patterns as all other shoes.

The Back Story

John is a fifth-generation beef producer, a professional agriculturalist who has worked in the cattle and sheep industries from the Northern Territory to Tasmania. However, he decided to try to find a better way of utilising our land than by grazing it with exotic, hard-hoofed animals. He quit his dream job with the Tasmanian Department of Agriculture to set up Lenah and began producing wallaby and possum products.

Twenty years later, Wallaby is now a staple in Tasmanian supermarkets and rapidly gaining popularity on ‘the mainland’. John has been fond of saying that ‘wallaby has been the red meat of choice amongst discerning Tasmanian diners for 40,000 years. It’s only in the last 100 years or so that there’s been a hiccup in its marketing program, we’re just correcting that.’

Well, it’s the same with Wuggs, they are a by-product of this program.