APPLE LEATHER - A MORE SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE TO REAL LEATHER?

At KeriKit, our mission is to provide women, often busy working mothers, with beautiful and practical bags and accessories that help you feel empowered and the best versions of yourselves no matter what adventure your day has in store.  

When it comes to choosing the right materials, we are always focussed on quality, sustainability, and affordability. Sometimes sourcing new materials can be challenging for a small business like ours due to our small productions runs, so when my focus turned to trying to create a plant based non-leather, we had a few challenges along the way! However never to be defeated the quest continued and eventually we were able to find a fantastic supplier who wanted to support us and allowed us to do a small run of our very first Apple leather in our award-winning Amber bag. 

The reason I chose apple leather over PU is because it is better for the environment and offers an alternative for those who do not want to carry real leather. However, don’t be fooled into thinking that it is ‘better’ than leather. Leather is a biproduct of the meat industry and it is also biodegradable. In fact, while we continue to eat meat, if we did not make bags and clothes out of the leather then in just 4 years all the land fill sites in the USA will be filled with the animal hides. 

I totally agree; we eat too much meat and this is something as a collective that we need to address, but I just want to be really clear that while we eat meat, leather is the most sustainable option.  

Is Apple Leather better than PU? 

PU stands for polyurethane and is a man-made synthetic derived from petrol as is nylon. While technically regarded as being 100% vegan. Which can be a good selling point, it’s not very sustainable, and isn’t biodegradable. It can last as long as 40 to 50 years without breaking down in landfill and even then, it ends up as tiny chips which can end up blowing into the ocean and harming aquatic life. 

How is apple leather made? 

The story of Apple leather started in 2004. Alberto Volcan, an inventor from Italy, was looking for ways to use leftover apple waste from the apple juice industry. First, he created paper which used 15% apple waste and reduced the CO2 impact by 20%-25% compared to other papers. One of the first projects developed was a vegetable glue, which in itself wasn’t successful but Alberto didn’t give up, and instead reworked the glue to be placed through a pasta machine. The sheet of fabric created became the basis of apple leather!  

 

Apple leather, also known as Apple Skin, is a bio-based material made using the leftover pomace and peelfrom the fruit juice industry. The pomace is dried and then processed into a fine powder which is then mixed with biodegradable plastic and applied to tear-resistant cotton fabric. The roll is then heated and pressed to make the material weather resistant and durable. The end result is an ingenious high quality leather alternative which reduces the CO2 impact by 50% compared to PU, perfect for hardworking bags and accessories.  

Amber Apple Leather Backpack 

We are super excited to offer our first apple leather design in our best-selling, award winning Amber Backpack.  

Our goal to offer our customers as many choices as possible continues, while offsetting our carbon footprint and leaving the world in a better place than how we found it. 

Apple leather is a great addition to our collection. It’s lightweight, waterproof and crease proof too.  Naturally it comes with all the genius details that you have become accustomed to and includes our custom designed water-resistant jacquard lining only this time around this is 100% recycled too! 

 

To find out more about this stunning versatile style Click HERE to see a helpful video introducing our new Amber apple leather. 

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