Has the market for 'vegan' leather stalled?

How can an expensive man-made, plastic-based product ever compete with a durable, natural by-product of another huge industry? That’s the question now being asked of the once burgeoning vegan leather business.

Bolt Threads, the maker of Mylo, the much heralded maker of mushroom leather has run out of money. It grew and ‘engineered’ mycelium into a material that looked and felt like animal leather. It had brands such as Adidas, Stella McCartney and Lululemon flocking to add a new vegan vegetable leather alternative to their accessory offerings.

But, it appears to have been unsustainable in business terms. The time and R&D needed to produce and then scale has proved too much, while the traditional leather industry reminds everybody that animal leather would still exist, while people continued to eat meat, regardless of how much vegan leather we all bought.

According to Leather UK, leather exists only because of the meat industry. More than 99% of the leather produced globally is made with hides and skins from animals reared for meat. None of these animals are bred for their hides and skins.

Meat production generates about 11.6 million tonnes per year of hides and skins. If these were not used to make leather, they would simply be thrown away. At a global level, a hide is currently worth on average between 1 to 2% of the value of the whole animal when slaughtered. It has also been shown that demand for hides and skins has no direct influence on the rearing and slaughter of animals. In fact, the best estimates suggest that up to 40% of the hides produced each year are still disposed of as waste.

At the same time, and one of the nagging negatives around the animal leather business, tanneries, are trying to clean up their act by being certified with ‘Gold Rated’ status.

A Mylo mushroom leather garment from Stella McCartney

Many brands are now using Leather Working Group certified leathers. The Leather Working Group (LWG) is an international, not-for-profit organisation working to improve the environmental impact of the leather supply chain through audit certification.

First launched in 2005, the LWG Leather Manufacturer Audit assesses the performance of leather manufacturing facilities (or "tanneries") against environmental, social and governance metrics.

Vegan leather was a clever rebranding of plastic with the added extra of containing between 10-15% of added vegetable product. It made people feel good about buying something they had previously sneered at – PVC or PU. It certainly connected with younger generations who opted for vegan Dr Martens or Telfar bags.

The newsworthiness of vegan has lessened. It felt like everybody was doing it. Brands, looking at cutting costs, will return to animal leather if it is cheaper and offers a better and more durable product. If they can add ‘Gold Rated’ to the product description, then it will continue to tick a ‘sustainability’ box.

The novelty of vegan leather has waned, while consumers understand the durability of animal leather. Animal leather is more durable than vegan leather and ages differently. Using something that exists already seems way more sustainable than creating something new that is difficult to recycle and dispose of. If something is more durable and last longer that is also better environmentally.

The vegan leather industry has been very clever at attracting funding over the past few years. Investors will want to see returns and also a continued consumer appetite. Mylo probably won’t be the only vegetable-based leather to run into difficulty as money becomes more scarce.

If animal leather can continue to clean up its act and get that message across, consumers, particularly older consumers who see animal leather as a sign of quality, will re-embrace a material we have used for thousands of years.

Until we’re all eating plants that taste like meat – another sector that needed and ran out of expensive funding – brands already have a useful material that is a pleasure to hold and touch and has proved itself as a long lasting, getting better with age. The leather industry and brands only need to remind us.