The Business Turning Kiwifruit Into A Leather Alternative

A new leather alternative aims to find news uses for the over 50,000 tonnes of kiwifruit that is rejected in New Zealand each year.

Shelley Houston founded KiwiLeather Innovations four years ago.

Then based in Papamoa, her son had been bringing home an abundance of waste or rejected kiwifruit from his work at one of the orchards.

She was surprised to learn just how much kiwifruit waste there was - much of this is used by farmers to help feed stock.

"I used to be quite a keen baker, but I found there's only so much baking you can do with kiwifruit."

She set about trying to develop new alternatives for the waste byproduct.

"I'd seen overseas in Europe that they make a lot of biomaterials and things like that out of mangoes and apples and grapes, so I thought I'd give it a go with kiwifruit.

The plant- and bio-based leather alternative can be used for many different products. Photo: Supplied

Houston said the resulting prototype had worked better than she thought it would. She's worked with Scion research to perfect the formula and create a more viable product.

The kiwifruit leather is plant-based and plastic-free. She said many people had remarked the alternative "smells just like leather".

It's durability means it can be used as a leather alternative. Houston said they were targetting the automotive sector, with companies like Tesla using cactus leather, and furniture manufacturers.

"There's just not enough product out there, enough bio-materials for these companies to be able to create that sort of thing."

Houston has partnered with a number of packhouses who provided her with kiwifruit they can't use.

She said it was good to give growers more value while repurposing the byproduct.

Houston said people could expect to see prototype products released over the next few months.

This article was first published by RNZ