PEEL Lab’s Plant-Based Leather Is Making Products More Durable & Affordable

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Peel Lab has developed a pineapple leather that mimics the durability, waterproofness, and aesthetic look of leather, but without the downsides of a cow having to give up its skin to make your new shoes. We ran into them at the Japanese external trade organization pavilion at CES this year as one of the featured companies, and we’re excited to dig in to what they’re doing.

PEEL Lab’s pineapple-based leather mimics the external aesthetic of leather, but is much thinner than its counterpart. This allows it to be much more flexible while delivering the same overall experience as traditional leather. To make it, they take discarded pineapple husks and transform them through a proprietary process into fibers that are then pressed into a leather-esque material that can be used in boots, handbags, belts, seats, and the like.

As a Japanese company, they’re currently looking at the Japanese market for early applications and customers. One of their early applications is a version of the traditional Japanese student backpack that is typically produced with leather, but commands a staggering price point of around $950. PEEL Lab developed a comparable version of the Japanese student backpack with the very same aesthetics, better durability, and a waterproof exterior, and their version only comes in at $350, which is a significant improvement.

More than just the external price, PEEL Lab’s pineapple-based leather takes the waste from pineapple fruit production and turns it into something that’s extremely useful. Decreasing the amount of organic material going to landfill reduces overall emissions while also directly eliminating the need for high-emission leather. Cows themselves produce a ton of emissions, so the more we can reduce our dependence on all animal products, the better for our emissions.

Upscale fitness brand Fysik from Bangkok, Thailand, used PEEL Lab’s leather in its designer dumbbells and medicine balls. It’s a great look and one not easily distinguishable from animal leather. The uses for a natural environmentally-friendly leather alternative are nearly endless, and it’s exciting to see PEEL Lab building such a useful, beautiful material out of what would otherwise be going into the compost pile.