Leather Pipeline: move away from meat means frustration for tanners
28/01/2020
It suggests that almost all big food companies are now trying to cash in on the interest of some consumers in meat alternatives, with the range of imitation products growing all the time. This, according to Leather Pipeline, has led to speculation that consumption of meat, in Europe at least, could fall by between 3% and 5% per year in the near future.
Globally, meat consumption and cattle slaughter are more likely to increase, but what this means for the leather industry is that high-quality European hides will become more scarce and more expensive, while the raw material that is more easily available to tanners will be of lower quality.
This situation is developing at a time when it is precisely those higher-quality hides that are driving an improvement in leather demand. “If we just look at the past two months or so, prices for raw materials like calfskin and top-quality heavy males were the ones that were the first to turn around,” the report says. “In the case of calfskins, prices are still significantly lower than they were a year ago, but already a decent 5% to 10% up from the low points they reached.”
High-quality leather is attracting much more interest than it was halfway through 2019. If the raw material becomes harder and more expensive to source, there is a fear that this revival could be short-lived.
Share this story:
