Tannery of the Year 2018: Innovation Award winner - leatherbiz: Leadin Leatherbiz

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Tannery of the Year 2018: Innovation Award winner

14/03/2018
Thailand’s Interhides Public Company Limited (IHL) won the global award at the 2018 Tannery of the Year Awards in Hong Kong on March 14 and was also the recipient of the competition’s Innovation Award for the work it has done to develop an in-house system of using shaving and buffing dust to create a new, protein-based filler product to make the quality of hides more uniform.

A special panel of judges, comprising tanners who are previous winners of the global award, considered one example of innovation from each of the finalists and IHL’s system was a clear winner. IHL says this product makes hides of varying quality more uniform.

The process involves dissolving shaving dust in a special hydrolysate at high temperature and then passing it through a filter press, leaving around five parts per million of chrome left in the solution. Other tanners in the Bangpoomai cluster send their shaving dust for free (they used to have to send it to landfill, which costs), and then they can buy the filler product to use in their own production at a discount price.

IHL launched this service in August 2016 and says demand is picking up, but it is using a substantial proportion of the filler product in its own tannery.



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