Fruitleather – from fruit to leather-like material
Worldwide, throwing away food is a big problem. Some 30% of the world’s agricultural land is used to produce 1.3 trillion tonnes of food that is not consumed. Of all the fruit that is produced for consumption, 45% gets thrown away. Confronted with fruit waste at the Rotterdam market, the people at Fruitleather Rotterdam thought they could make a difference. They arranged to pick up the fruit from market merchants and started developing a new eco-friendly process that converts leftover fruits into a durable leather-like material.
"A solution for the 45% of consumption fruit that becomes waste: converting it into a durable, leather-like material"
Eco-friendly production
Fruitleather transforms the discarded fruit into sheets of durable, leather-like material. In order to get a real leather look, final finishing is applied. The Fruitleather can be coated or imprinted before being used for a wide variety of products that otherwise use traditional leather. The production process, which involves mashing, cooking, and drying, is much cleaner than the traditional leather production. Using natural materials, Fruitleather is much less harmful to the environment and animals. Fruitleather Rotterdam is now developing the material further, making it strong enough to be used to make shoes, handbags and other products.
