Leatherbiz Market Intelligence: raw material suppliers look to recoup
A new issue of Leatherbiz Market Intelligence is out today, including, as always, our exclusive fortnightly Leather Pipeline report and its analysis of the leather value chain. The newsletter is available for subscribers to read on the website.
On this occasion, it is the price of raw material that commands the most attention. The report says that a spell of low prices for hides seemed to end at the turn of the year and that, since then, meat companies have been pushing their asking prices higher.
It suggests that low prices in 2020 helped packers clear inventory of hides, with tanners in China the principal buyers. Now may not be the best time to try charge more, though, for two reasons.
First, like all factories in China, tanneries there are about to stop operating for the Lunar New Year holiday. Secondly, tanners in Europe are approaching the end of their busy season; demand for finished leather slows in the second and third quarters of most years.
One reason that Leatherbiz Market Intelligence suggests for this move by the packer companies is that they may feel hard done to because of how cheap even top-quality hides became in 2020 and that the time is right for them to try to recoup some of the money they lost out on.
Once again, the newsletter also includes a lengthier article in the new Long Read component. We offer another feature from the December-January issue of World Leather. In this issue of the magazine we have begun a programme of updating some of the essays in the Nothing To Hide series. We offer here a revised version of essay one, which examines the availability of hides and skins around the world and assesses the environmental, economic and social benefits that arise from turning this material into leather.
Image: Gruppo Mastrotto
