Pushing up hide prices is self-inflicted harm, Jon Clark says
The chief executive of tanning group PrimeAsia, Jon Clark, has said the leather industry has still not recovered from the business it lost after hide prices reached record high levels in 2014.
In recent comments on social media, Mr Clark said high raw material costs at the time, with heavy native steer hides reaching $115 each (compared to around $45 at the start of March 2021), opened the door to cheaper alternatives.
Mr Clark said innovative material manufacturers “came through with a slew of non-leather options to replace expensive and fiscally inconsistent leather”. There was what he called “an innovation surge and replacement surge” from which the leather industry has not recovered.
He said short-term gains meat companies achieve by increasing the price of hides leads to a degradation in long-term demand for that by-product and he said he was sure there were people in the meat industry who understood this well.
He expressed frustration that meat companies were once again raising the price of hides and called this “self-inflicted, long-term harm”.
The PrimeAsia chief executive called on the meat industry to look beyond the small, short-term gains they might be able to achieve by raising hide prices, but he played the gains down, saying hide sales contribute less than 2% of the companies’ total revenues.
He suggested that the environmental problem meat companies would have on their hands if there were no tanners to take the by-product off them should feature far more prominently in their thinking. “They need the leather industry, just as we need the meat industry,” Mr Clark said.
He concluded that all parties involved should work together to preserve longer-term demand.
