Twenty-five years of Leatherbiz
This website has now been documenting the ups and downs of the global leather industry for 25 years. The first news stories went live on leatherbiz in March 2001.
The site has reported almost every major event that has occurred in the leather industry this century in 28,610 news stories, 28,611 with this one.
To give just a few examples, the name Mastrotto first comes up in the archive in March 2002, when part of the Arzignano leather manufacturing dynasty was preparing to set up a new wet blue plant in Brazil, a joint venture with footwear group Reichert Calçados.
Another famous industry name, Lang, appeared on leatherbiz’s very first day. This was a report stating that the tannery Scottish Leather Group ran in Paisley, W J & J Lang Limited, had won an environmental award.
It took until December 2001 for the name Muirhead to come up and, even then a Lang stole the show. On this occasion, the news piece reported that James Lang had been appointed to the role of managing director of the group’s upholstery tannery in the east end of Glasgow, Andrew Muirhead & Son Limited.
Stories featuring the APLF exhibition have come up more than 400 times. Lineapelle features in 381 articles. Vuitton comes up 482 times and Gucci 410. JBS makes 453 appearances, India’s Council for Leather Exports 430 times, the China Leather Industry Association 370 times.
Brazil’s CICB features in 424 leatherbiz news articles, while Italy’s UNIC and Assomac feature in 262 and 163, respectively. France’s Conseil National du Cuir in 104, plus in nearly 40 further stories under its new name, Alliance France Cuir. The Leather and Hide Council of America comes up 97 times, but its predecessor organisations, The US Hide, Skin and Leather Association (USHSLA) and the Leather Industries of America (LIA), come up 116 and 30 times, respectively. COTANCE appears in 337 of the pieces of news we have published over the years.
We will publish many thousands more stories in the years to come and keep adding to the content from World Leather magazine, our Market Intelligence newsletters and other sources that are available for readers to access on the site.
Below is a list of the top ten stories, by number of hits, in the site’s history, with the year of publication in brackets.
1. No restoration drama for JM Weston (2019)
2. CEO launches attack on lies about leather ( 2019)
3. Tannery of the Year 2016: Global winner named (2016)
4. BMW interior award spells success for olive-leaf tanning process (2014)
5. ‘Doomsday scenario’ suggests big drop in hide prices (2018)
6. Germany withdraws bisphenol restriction proposal ( 2023)
7. Future of leather education at University of Northampton in serious doubt (2023)
8. Stahl CEO to step down (2021)
9. Fire destroys Ecco Leather tannery in Dongen (2025)
10. Industry pioneer Tom Schneider has died (2026)
