Meet Julieanne the face behind wear me wheatbag

Hi, my name is Julieanne Narbey. I am a solo mum of two teenagers. Having been in the hairdressing industry for over 20 years, I felt it was time to do something different. I wanted to create a business and products I could produce from home to be more available for my children through these crucial years in their lives.

It was wintertime, and I got sore kidneys when cold. I felt aches and pains in my lower back, but I needed to continue with my house cleaning and other jobs. I had a rectangle wheat bag in my drawer. I decided to heat it and put it into the waistband of my pants to warm myself up and help relieve the pain. I became frustrated that my wheat bag would keep falling from where I needed it. I had work to do, that’s when I started thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I had a wheat bag that I could put around my waist and it would stay exactly where I needed it while I carried out my day’s tasks. From this simple idea, my journey began.

I learned how to sew as a teenager and spent many years making my clothes. I purchased some fabric and started to create the Waist Wheat Bag. I knew I had the skills required to develop this idea of wearable wheat bags. During the Waist wheat bag development, it became apparent that I was onto something and believed this product could help many people with lower back pain or period pain.

That got me thinking. People use wheat bags for many different reasons. I knew I needed different designs at this point to cover areas like the neck and shoulders. So I developed the Over Shoulder Wheat Bag and then the Pennywise Neck Wheat Bag. 

During my research and development of the above wheat bags, I started looking into different fillings as ultimately I wanted a filling that would maintain heat longer than wheat. I also wanted something that didn’t have the smell that wheat does. I didn’t want to put a glass of water every time during the heating process. I found Lupin Seed, and I was able to source it locally. Once the seed arrived, I started testing and quickly found out Lupin has many benefits over wheat, and more importantly, Lupin addresses my issues above.

I took these three wheat bag products to my local markets to validate the idea. The interest and feedback were incredible. People loved them, so the next step was to build a website and make them available to all of New Zealand.

As time has gone on, I have developed more wearable wheat bags for almost every area of the body.

I pride myself on quality. Each Wheat Bag is handcrafted here in the sunny Bay of Plenty. I source our fabrics and fillings here in New Zealand. I only use 100% cotton fabric for our Wheat bags.

I strive to achieve the best customer service for my clients. Please get in touch to let me know how we are doing or if you have suggestions for new products or ideas for improvement. I’d love to hear your feedback. 

Love 

Julieanne